


Lover's Eyes

by ikeracity



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Communication Failures Up the Wazoo, Drug Use, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 19:46:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1911504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeracity/pseuds/ikeracity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Erik gets knocked unconscious in his attempt to kill Raven in Paris, Charles makes the executive decision to take him back to the mansion to keep him out of the hands of the human authorities. Charles and Erik aren't the same men they were eleven long years ago. But maybe there's enough of their old selves left to change the future for the better, and find their way back to each other along the way. </p><p>- </p><p>canon divergence from DOFP starting from the plane scene</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by all the flailing I did with Betty after we watched the movie. I have 3 chapters of this already written with a fourth in the works. Hopefully (and I know I say this every time, but at least you can't accuse me of not being optimistic, right?) this won't remain a WIP for long. 
> 
> Thanks to spicedpiano and kageillusionz for the beta. You're both lovely. <33
> 
> Title from "Lover's Eyes" by Mumford & Sons.

ONE

They play in silence, the way they always used to. Despite his wry promise, Erik is ruthless as he conquers his way across the board, cutting down black pieces without mercy. He keeps his eyes on the game and Charles is glad for it. He hates the thought of Erik scrutinizing him with that steely gaze of his that’s capable of seeing too much. He hates the thought of being judged, especially by the man sitting across from him now.  

Maybe it’s the glasses of whiskey he’s had or maybe he’s just out of practice, but in no time at all, he’s reaching out to tip his king with a sigh.

Erik glances up at him and arches an eyebrow. “Already?”

“Checkmate in four,” Charles says, leaning over to reach for the decanter. “The game’s yours.”

“You used to play until I had you good and cornered, even if you saw a checkmate coming.”

“Yeah, well,” Charles says, and there’s a twist of bitterness in his voice that he doesn’t mean to let slip, “I used to do a lot of things.”

Erik’s expression shutters. Silently, he begins resetting the board, this time swapping sides so that he’s playing black. Sipping at the glass in his hand, Charles watches him, watches those deft fingers set each piece in its proper square. The years haven’t aged Erik much. Outwardly at least, he’s nearly the same as Charles remembers: darkly handsome with a stern mouth, guarded eyes, and a resting face that’s intimidating in its impassivity. But there’s no telling how his decade-long imprisonment has changed him inside, for better or for worse.

When the board is set, Charles plays his pawn forward and, six moves later, falls into a trap he should have seen. Erik swipes one of his white knights from the board and says, “You’re getting slow, Charles.”

With a frown, he swallows a mouthful of whiskey and takes hold of his remaining knight. A minute later, Erik takes that one, too, as well as Charles’ queen. After that, the fight is over quickly, more of a slaughter than anything else, and when Charles flicks his king over, Erik’s brows draw together. “Why did you do that?”

“Checkmate in six.”

“Not necessarily.” Erik reaches across and pushes Charles’ bishop forward and—oh. He hadn’t seen that, though he should have. When he raises his head, Erik is looking at him the way he used to when he was trying to puzzle Charles out, the way he’d looked at him across the chessboard in that smoky motel in New Jersey the first night Charles had reached across and grabbed a fistful of his shirt to pull him into a kiss.

Suddenly it’s all too much. He needs _air_.

Standing, he sets the glass in his hand down on the edge of the table and steps into the aisle. As he moves to pass Erik, the plane hits a bump and he nearly loses his footing, but Erik’s hand shoots out to hold him steady.

“Sorry!” Hank calls from the cockpit. “Bit of turbulence.”

Barely hearing him, Charles stares down at Erik and then at the hand on his arm. Erik’s fingers feel like burning brands against his skin, sinking in and in, and he’s abruptly, irrationally afraid that if he leaves them there for too long, he won’t be able to pull away. Averting his eyes, he shakes Erik’s hand off and stalks down the plane to the bathroom in the back. Logan glances at him as he passes but doesn’t say a word.

This is stupid, he thinks as he shuts the door behind him. This whole plan is foolhardy. It rests on too many variables, too many _ifs_. As much information as Logan has tried to provide them, they’re still flying largely in the dark. Raven could be anywhere right now, and all they’re relying on to find her is guesswork and Erik’s tracking skills, which haven’t been put to use in a decade or more. Without his telepathy, Charles feels near useless, and Erik…how much can they really trust Erik?

The worst part is how desperately, how fiercely he wants to believe in Erik. Even after all these years, even after what happened in Cuba, Charles wants him to be the man he always knew Erik could be. But every instinct tells him to be wary and he knows he should listen. Erik is a wild card now, and it won’t do to underestimate him. They can’t think of Erik as a friend, only as a temporary ally at best. Charles, of all people, should know how quickly Erik can turn, after all.

He splashes some water on his face and braces his hands against the tiny sink for a few minutes, leaning his back against the opposite wall. Then, steeling himself, he opens the bathroom door and walks back down the aisle to his seat.

Logan has shifted closer to them while Charles was gone. “Beast says we’ll be landing in Paris in a couple of hours,” he says as Charles sits. “Figured we should go over the plan.”

Erik studies the chessboard as if he hadn’t heard, so Charles says, “Alright. Have you got one then?”

“What?”

“The plan, you said. I assume that means you have one.”

Logan frowns. “My part of the job was to get you two geniuses together. Now knock heads and figure something out.”

Charles darts a lightning-quick glance at Erik, who is still scrutinizing the game. He hasn’t reset the board, so Charles’ king lies where he left it, tipped between a pawn and an enemy rook. Out of the corner of his eye, Charles watches as Erik picks the king up and sets it carefully upright.

“Chuck?”

Charles pulls his attention back to Logan. “Please don’t call me that.”

“You never objected before. Well, future you never did.”

“I don’t think you need to be reminded that I’m not the man you know.” Charles reaches for his glass on the table and swirls the remainder of his whiskey slowly as he considers the facts. “So far, all you’ve told us is that Raven is going to be at the peace accords in three days. Is there anything else you know that will help?”

Logan shakes his head. “All I know is what you told me. Mystique has to be stopped and you two are the ones who have to get it done.”

“Trust Charles to try to unite us,” Erik mutters, still not looking at either of them.

Logan’s mouth twists wryly. “Actually, it was you who told me that, bub. Said it was going to take the both of you, together.”

“Really.” Charles restrains an incredulous laugh. “Erik said that.”

“Believe it or not, you two work together in the future,” Logan says. “We all do. Not much choice after the Sentinels started winning. We stick together or we die.”

Erik sits back in his seat, rolling the black king between his fingers. “Sounds bleak.”

“You have no idea.”

“And you say we can prevent it.”

“By not allowing Mystique to kill Trask in Paris, yes.”

Erik presses his lips together for a moment. Charles can see the wheels turning in his eyes, but he can’t even take a guess at what Erik must be thinking. He doesn’t want to fool himself into believing he knows Erik at all anymore. To assume familiarity would be dangerous.

“Why not let her?” Erik asks at last, his thumb tracing an absent line down the chess piece in his hand.

Logan gives Erik the flat stare a teacher would give a particularly dense child. “Have you listened to anything I’ve said at all since we got on this plane?”

“Let her kill Trask,” Erik continues, “and then destroy the plans for the Sentinels. Destroy the program and the man who created it and the humans won’t have their weapons.”

“First of all, we’re not letting her kill Trask,” Charles begins.

Erik directs a narrow-eyed glare at him. “With all he’s done and all you know he’ll do, you’ll still defend him—”

“We’re not letting her kill Trask,” Charles repeats, glaring back, “because I don’t want his blood on Raven’s hands. I don’t want anyone’s blood on Raven’s hands.”

Erik snorts. “She’s not your innocent little sister anymore, Charles. She hasn’t been in a long time.”

“Yes, well. She’s not a killer either, I know it.” If there’s anything he believes anymore, it’s that. Erik might have led Raven astray but she still has a good heart, no matter how many years she’s spent pursuing Erik’s agenda.

For a moment, Erik looks as if he might argue. His eyes are coolly amused when they meet Charles’, as if he knows truths that Charles doesn’t. It hurts that Erik knows Raven better than anyone else now, that he alone stands the best chance at finding her in Paris. Charles wants to think that his shared childhood with Raven counts for something, but he’s been wrong before. And, if the little facts Logan has let slip about their future are true, then he’ll be wrong about her again.

But they can change that. They _have_ to change that.

“Alright,” Erik says finally, “then I’ll kill Trask.”

Logan frowns. “That’s not what we broke you out for.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have broken me out,” Erik replies.

Charles is beginning to think the same thing, but it’s too late for second-guessing decisions now. “Erik,” he starts, as calmly as he can manage, “Logan told us what happens if Trask dies. Humankind turns against us. Mutants are hunted, persecuted—”

Erik’s eyes darken. “You think that hasn’t happened already? Angel, Banshee—”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Charles interrupts, guilt coiling hot in his belly. “If I had known what Trask was doing—”

“You would have what? Stopped him?” Erik’s lip curls derisively. “You don’t even want to stop him now, even knowing what he’s done.”

Charles doesn’t bother to rein in the anger that burns up through his chest toward his throat. “Of course I would have stopped him. I would have done everything in my power to keep them safe.”

“What powers?” Erik sneers, leaning forward toward him. When Charles stares at him, struck speechless by the sudden, ugly rage in his voice, he continues, merciless. “You gave up. You gave them up. You hid when others of our kind were out there fighting and dying. You left me a cage for ten years and never once tried to find me, never once came.”

Charles grips the glass in his hand so tightly he’s almost surprised it doesn’t shatter. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

“Yes,” Erik mocks. “In your mansion away from prying eyes where you could be a coward in peace—”

Charles stands, catching the chessboard with his knee and nearly knocking it off the table. Chess pieces go flying but he doesn’t pay them any attention, doesn’t flinch at Erik’s glare. Hot, uncontrollable fury surges through his veins like a drug, like the serum, except it doesn’t dull his energy, it rouses him. For the first time in a long time, he feels _awake_ , and he hates Erik in that moment. He hates Erik more than he’s ever hated anyone, more than he hates even himself.

“Charles…” Logan says, eyeing him.

Erik’s gaze is on him, too, its weight almost unbearable. The savage heat in his eyes dares Charles to argue, dares him to press further. Erik has never been one to back away when he’s taken the advantage.

“Tell me when we land,” Charles says thickly. He strides past both of them without a word and walks straight to the back of the plane, settling in a window seat so that he isn’t in Erik’s direct line of sight.

This was a mistake, he thinks vehemently as he stares out the window at the blur of white clouds. He tosses back the rest of the whiskey in his glass and tries to pretend his heart isn’t hammering twice as fast as it should be in his chest. He’s not sure if they’re going to be able to find Raven or if they’re going to be able to stop Logan’s future from coming to pass, but right now he is sure of this: they’re going to regret breaking Erik out of prison.

Erik brings nothing but destruction, and Charles knows it best.

 

*

 

The hostel Hank finds for them in Paris is less than ideal. For one thing, with the constant flow of officials and diplomats through the city, space is tight and their group is allotted only two rooms. Logan looks as if he’s liable to stab someone when Hank hands him one of the keys and tells him he’ll be sharing with Erik.

“You want me to room with Magneto,” Logan says flatly, staring at the key in his hand with distaste. “How about no fucking thank you?”

“I need to stay with Charles,” Hank says firmly. “He has medical needs that have to be attended to.”

“Yeah, and one or both of us is going to have medical needs that need attending to if I have to stay in the same room with him alone.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Hank asks politely.

Logan nods at Charles and Erik in turn. “Those two need to work things out. I say toss them into a room together and see what happens.”

“No,” Hank says, at the same time Charles mutters, “Like hell.”

Erik, bastard that he is, smiles humorlessly. “I agree with Luke. We can survive in a room together, can’t we, Charles? For old times’ sake.”

“First of all, his name is Logan,” Charles says, glaring at him. “Second, fuck off.”

Hank nods. “I don’t want them in the same room. I don’t trust him.”

Erik’s smile widens, all teeth. “Come on, Hank. We were friends.”

“ _Were_ ,” Hank says coldly, with enough force to make Erik cock his head in surprise. Charles almost smiles.

“Hank and I are fine, thank you,” he says, taking Hank’s elbow to steer him toward the stairs. “Logan, I’m afraid you’ll have to take one for the team, as they say.”  

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Logan grouses, but he closes his fist around the key and stomps up the stairs behind them.

Both rooms are cramped and far from spotless, but at least the furniture is intact and the doors lock satisfactorily. As Hank sets their luggage down by the dresser, Charles crosses over to the window and opens the curtains, casting a swath of sunlight over both beds. It’s not as cold here as it is in New York, though it’s certainly more humid.  He lays his hand against the windowpane and leans forward to look out over Paris.

He’d been to Paris before, back in his Oxford days. He and a couple of friends spent one hot August exploring the Louvre and racing each other up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. Raven had come, too, but she’d bored of the museums quickly, preferring to frequent cafés and walk in the streets. They’d met up in the evenings at various discothèques, wild nights that Charles remembers now fondly. Afterwards, when they’d retired to the privacy of their shared hotel room, Raven had delighted in showing him all the interesting people she’d spotted during the day, shifting seamlessly from one figure to another with a speed that had amazed and fascinated him. It might have been here in Paris, watching Raven whirl dizzyingly from one character to another with dazzling skill, that he had first realized that she was growing up.  

That’s the Raven he remembers: smiling, happy, brilliant Raven, who for so many years was his sole companion and confidante. He refuses to believe that she’s gone.

Behind him, Hank’s watch beeps. It’s an ingenious little thing, modeled after the Pulsar LED watches that debuted only last year. As soon as Hank had gotten his hands on the designs (scrupulously or not, Charles never asked), he’d set about creating his own, complete with modifications that were probably years ahead of anything any watch company was currently putting out. The watch has a digital time display, a tiny window on the face for the date, and, most importantly, a timer setting that counts down exactly eight hours before ringing.

Charles turns and rolls up his sleeve in a well-practiced movement. Without a word, Hank sets one of their suitcases on the bed, unzips a side compartment, and carefully pulls out the black case inside. As he fills up a syringe, Charles sits down on the edge of the other bed, rubbing a hand absently along his thigh. The flight here was long and stressful, and evidently his legs aren’t appreciating it very much. It used to be that the serum lasted almost three days, and then a day, and then twelve hours, and now they’re down to nine at the maximum. He can feel the serum’s potency weakening month by month and it frightens him. He’s not sure what he’ll do the day he depresses the plunger and nothing happens.

Hank hands him the syringe and then resets the timer on his watch as Charles slips the needle into his arm and injects the serum. There’s no instant relief, as there had been the first time Hank had administered the drug, but after a few minutes, Charles’ legs do feel slightly stronger and the complete silence in his head reasserts itself. Any whispers that might have been creeping in as the serum wore off are quieted, and he hands the syringe back to Hank with a nod.  

“How are you feeling?” Hank asks as he packs the case away again.

“Good. Legs are steady.”

“And your head?”

“Quiet.”

After a beat of hesitation, Hank adds, “And Erik?”

Charles’ gaze snaps over to him. “What about him?”

“Things seemed tense on the plane. I didn’t hear everything but I think that nosedive we took spoke volumes.”

“It’s fine.”

“Charles.” Hank’s skepticism is palpable. “What he did to you—”

“Is in the past. Eleven years past. I suggest you let it go, Hank. There’s no changing the fact that we have to work with him, and there’s no point in feeling angry about it now. It won’t change anything.”

He starts to head for the bathroom, but Hank stops him with a hand on his arm. “This is a bad idea,” he says lowly, brow furrowed, “and you don’t need me to tell you that.”

The look he gives Charles then is keen and piercing and all too knowing, and it makes Charles suddenly furious. Hank knows _nothing_.

“Yes,” he says bitingly, “you’re right. I don’t need you to tell me anything.”

As he shoves past, he can feel Hank’s gaze on the back of his neck and knows if he turns around, Hank will be frowning, his mouth one thin line of consternation. He doesn’t need his telepathy to feel Hank’s hurt, to know Hank’s disappointment every time Charles snaps at him as if he’s the enemy. And almost as soon as the words leave his mouth, he hates himself for that, too: for losing his temper with the one person who has stood by him all these years, the one person who has never left.

He shuts the bathroom door and stands for a moment by the counter, just breathing. The anger leaves him as soon as it comes, leaving him feeling weak and exhausted. After a minute, he lifts his head and peers into the small mirror above the sink. The man who looks back at him is nearly unrecognizable.

He and Erik aren’t so different after all, he muses with a mirthless grin at his reflection. They’re both good at hurting the people they love.

 

*

 

They convene in the other room when they’re all settled, since it’s slightly larger. Hank folds himself into the tiny sofa by the rattling radiator while Logan and Erik sit on the edges of their beds. Charles stands by the window, staring out into the streets to avoid all their gazes.

“She kills Trask a little after two in the afternoon on January 18,” Logan tells them. “Does it in the boardroom with everyone watching. Can’t get much more public than that.”

“And immediately after, she’s captured and handed over to Trask Industries,” Charles finishes, troubled. It’s absurd, the idea that in a few days’ time, his sister will be taken into a laboratory and be forced to endure terrible experiments that will ultimately lead to the destruction of their kind and, if Logan is to be believed, of the entire world. It’s absurd and terrifying.

Erik’s expression is contemplative. Beyond that, Charles can’t read anything off of him. “Mystique is the key to this, you said. It’s her blood that gives the humans the tools they need to build a weapon to destroy us.”

Logan nods. “That’s what the two of you told me. This war, it starts here, with her.”

“We can’t allow the humans to get their hands on her then.”

“We agree on that point,” Charles says, nodding. “Now we need to figure out where she is and, failing that, we need a contingency plan. If we can’t locate her before she infiltrates the peace accords, then we’ll need to find a way in, too. Hank?”

Hank, who seems to have withdrawn into his own thoughts, jerks back to attention at the mention of his name. “Hmm?”

“Can you make us IDs to get into wherever they’re holding the peace negotiations?” Charles asks. “As a last resort, in case we need to intervene there.”

“Oh, yeah, of course. I’ll need a few hours, and they won’t be very complex, given time restrictions. If security runs thorough checks, the IDs likely won’t pass…”

“That wouldn’t be a problem if Charles wasn’t out of commission, now would it?” Erik says, his gaze turning to Charles. It’s a challenge, not a question, and Charles doesn’t want to rise to the bait but he bristles anyway.

“I’ve looked it up,” Hank cuts in before Charles can speak. “I hacked through some channels and it looks like they’re holding the talks at the Hotel Majestic on Avenue Kléber. Some of the officials and their advisors are also staying at other hotels, but the formal negotiation is happening at the Majestic. I assume that’s where she’ll strike.”

Erik glances coolly away, unaffected by Charles’ scowl. “We’ll need to canvass the area to find a way in. The two of you can do that. Charles and I will look for Mystique.”  

“No way,” Hank protests immediately, sitting up straighter. “You and Charles aren’t going off anywhere, and we should all be looking for Raven. It’ll maximize our chances of finding her before she gets to the peace accords.”

“What makes you think you can find her?” Erik asks, raising an eyebrow. “What makes you think she’s even in the city? For all we know, she could be planning to fly in before noon, kill Trask, and hop the next flight out of here. If we can’t find her before Thursday, which is likely not going to happen, then we’ll need to get into the Hotel Majestic. It’s the only place we know for sure she’s going to be.”

“Hate to be the one to say this,” Logan says, “but he makes sense.”

Charles hates to admit it, too, but Erik has a point. That may be the most frustrating thing about Erik: he may be brusque, cold, and ruthless, but he always has a point.

“Alright,” he says, keeping his voice measured and his eyes firmly fixed away from Erik, “then Hank and I will look at the hotel while you two look for Raven.”

Displeasure curls at the edge of Erik’s lips, but Logan is the first to speak. “You can’t stick me with him again,” he growls. “I already have to share a room with him and that’s pretty much going to kill me, which is saying something because I’m damn near unkillable.”

Charles shakes his head. “Hank is making our IDs for the hotel, so it only makes sense to have him on-site, and Erik knows—” _Raven best_ , is what he means to say, but he switches words midway through. “—how to track people. I’ll need to stay with Hank for—for obvious reasons—”

“Obvious reasons,” Erik echoes, cocking his head. “Enlighten us please, Charles.”  

“Stop it,” Hank says quietly.

Erik’s stare is relentless. “No, please, tell us why you need to stay with Hank. Better yet, tell us why you won’t look me in the eye. It’s because you’re afraid, aren’t you, Charles. You’re _frightened_.”

Hank stands. “Shut up.”

Still seated, Erik only turns an amused look at him. “Or what? You’ll drug me up until the world fades away so I can pretend everything’s alright? Please.”

With a snarl, Hank steps forward, blue beginning to pulse visibly at his temples. Charles turns from the window then and says, “Enough.” Ignoring Hank’s sharp glance, Charles looks Erik dead in the eye and says flatly, “Fine. We’ll look for Raven together. Logan and Hank will go to the hotel.”

“Charles—”

“No, Hank, it’s alright. It’s probably best anyway. If Raven’s going to listen to reason, it’ll have to come from both of us. We’ve been with her longest.”

“Still….”

He turns to look at Hank, who’s regarding him with obvious concern. Since losing his telepathy, Charles has grown slightly more adept at reading facial cues and body language, and it isn’t difficult to see that the last thing Hank wants is to leave him and Erik alone together, that Hank’s afraid of what will happen if they’re allowed to even coexist in the same room without supervision. And his fears are hardly ungrounded: almost everything in their history together should give him cause to worry. But Charles refuses to be cowed by Erik’s presence. He’s already been hurt by the man, in more ways than one; he absolutely refuses to be scared of him as well.

“I can take care of myself,” he says to Hank, softening his tone. “I’ll be fine.”

Logan, who’s been strangely quiet as the tension mounts, stands from his bed and takes Hank by the elbow. “Come on, kid,” he says, dragging Hank toward the door before he can protest, “we’ve got work to do.”

They’re out of the room and gone before Charles really even registers that they’re moving, and it’s only once the door is shut behind them that he realizes he’s truly alone with Erik for the first time in eleven years.

He takes a breath. “Where should we start?”

“Charles,” Erik says, and now his voice is almost gentle, like it was on the plane when he’d apologized. And _God_ , he’d _apologized_. Erik, who lives his life unrepentantly, who buries mistakes rather than give them a second thought—Erik apologized for what had happened in Cuba with a sincerity that had cut like a knife. And Charles hates him for it, hates him for these moments of vulnerability. It’s a thousand times easier to hate Erik when he doesn’t sound like the man Charles loved.

“We should have a plan,” Charles continues as if he hadn’t heard. “I saw some tour maps at the front desk when we came in. We should narrow down locations to search and then decide on what to do if we do find Raven. We need to have a plan of attack, if you will—”

“Charles. Stop for a moment.”

He stops pacing. “What?”

Erik watches him curiously. “We can talk freely for the first time since Cuba, and you have nothing to say?”

“I have plenty to say. I’m saying things. Aren’t you listening to me?”

“You have nothing to say to _me?”_

Charles inhales slowly. Calm. Letting Erik rile him will do Raven no good. “What do you want, Erik?”

He means to sound angry, bitter, but the words come out tired. Erik stands. “I want to know what happened,” he answers, with an intensity that makes Charles instinctively want to shrink away. “I want to know what you’ve done since Cuba. Since I’ve been locked up. Not nothing, surely?” His voice hardens. “Or have you drunk the last eleven years away?”

Charles grits his teeth. “What is this, Erik? What do you want to hear? You don’t get to judge me. You of all people—”

“I,” Erik repeats, his eyes flashing. Something unfamiliar and dangerous enters his voice. “I of all people, who was imprisoned for _ten years_ for the crime of trying to save one of our own. And you never once came. You never even bothered to investigate, did you? You left me there to rot—”

“You left me on the beach!” Charles can feel himself shaking but he can’t stop. His voice is brittle as he spits, “You took my sister and you _left_ me there. Do you want to know what I did after Cuba? _Surgery_ , that’s what. Six of them, and not one of them could restore any sensation below my hips. I was in the hospital for two months, not that you ever bothered to check, did you? And after that was physical therapy so I could sit up properly again and dress myself because I couldn’t even go to the goddamned _bathroom_ without someone standing in the doorway to make sure I didn’t fall and hurt myself while I was trying to take a piss and I—I—”

Erik looks as if he’s been struck across the face. Viciously satisfied, Charles barks an ugly laugh. “What? Did you think they carried me home to the mansion and Hank dug a wheelchair out of the closet and dropped me in and off I went? Did you think I would’ve missed Sean’s funeral if I hadn’t—if I hadn’t been—”

He can’t finish. It’s been a long while since he thought of Sean, but the grief is still there, dark and choking where it lurks in the corners of his mind along with Darwin and Angel and every friend Charles has lost to the war in Vietnam, every student he’s seen go. When he allows himself to dwell on them too long, it feels as if the pain will crush him. Even now he doesn’t know if Alex is alright. The letters stopped coming a long time ago.

He takes a ragged breath and forces his voice to steady. “So no, I didn’t go see you. I didn’t even want to look. I had bigger things to worry about, if you’ll forgive me for that.”

For an interminable minute, Erik says nothing. Charles can’t look him in the face, afraid of what he’ll find there. For the first time in an eternity, he wishes he had his telepathy at hand, to either gauge Erik’s response or to wipe the last few minutes from his mind entirely. He doesn’t owe Erik anything, least of all an explanation, and now he’s gone and given too much away.   

“Charles,” Erik says finally, the gentleness back in his voice.

Charles jerks toward the door, his throat tight. “I’ll go get those tour maps.”

He’s out the door before either of them can say anything further, and tells himself he’s relieved when Erik doesn’t follow.

 

*

 

“So,” Logan says, once they’re safely out of earshot, “the two of them—what’s their deal?”

Beast—Hank—blinks at him. “What?”

“Their deal. You know, what’s their history. What happened between them?”

“I’m not sure it’s your business,” Hank replies, walking faster. They’re taking the stairs down to the ground floor because a gaggle of tourists had been crowding the elevators. “And besides, shouldn’t you already know? You’re from the future.”

“In the future the two of them spend about forty or fifty years trying to kill each other,” Logan says dryly. “Always got the sense there was something more between them, but the Professor’s the secretive type and Magneto…well, let’s just say he doesn’t really do small talk.”

Hank snorts. “I’ll believe that.”

He’s quiet as they come to the bottom of the stairwell and step out onto the ground floor, but as they stride down the hall, he asks suddenly, “What’s the future like?”

“Mm…it’s…” Logan thinks of the crumbling skyline of New York and remembers the chill of knowing war was coming. He remembers escaping in the X-Jet as the remains of the mansion burned behind them, remembers turning his head and asking the Professor, ‘What now?’

He remembers most of all that Charles hadn’t had an answer.

“Different,” he finishes. “You think computers now are cool, wait ’til you see an iPhone. Food’s about the same. _1984_ doesn’t happen. 2000’s are kinda shitty, but the Internet—yeah, you’ll wonder what you did before it. Music though—you’d better appreciate that while you have it.”

“What’s an iPhone?”

“Cell phone. Wait a few decades, you’ll be amazed.”

They flag a cab down and climb in the back. Hank manages to string together enough French to tell the driver their destination and then they’re off.

“In the future,” Hank asks, “what happens to Mystique?”

“Dead,” Logan answers gruffly. He hadn’t been there to see it personally, but he’d heard from Rogue, who had barely survived the Sentinel attack herself. She’d been shaken for weeks afterward. “Just like everyone else.”

“Oh,” Hank says, turning his face away.

It’s the last thing either of them says for the rest of the ride.

 

*

 

Charles is silent as Erik pores over the maps. He’s dragged the lone armchair in the room over to the window and sits staring out into the city, his gaze a hundred miles distant. Erik studies him out of the corner of his eye, searching for hints of the man he once knew. Eleven years has wrought radical changes on Charles, whose unkempt hair now hangs well past his chin, who looks at least ten pounds thinner than he’d been when Erik last saw him. It’s strange to see him in that god-awful shirt and ragged bell-bottoms, rather than in his sweaters and neatly-pressed trousers. It’s stranger still to watch the way he hunches in on himself, when in the past he seemed to expand and expand until he filled the entire room with his presence. But most different is the perpetual frown he carries like a mask, his brows always pinched together, his mouth constantly slanted in a thin line of unhappiness.

Erik knows how much time can change, but he hadn’t expected this. It angers him as much as it confuses him.

He marks out several locations on the map that Mystique might visit: the airport, the buildings surrounding the Hotel Majestic, and other hotels in the area. He’d told Hank earlier that they didn’t know if she’d be flying in the morning of her planned attack, but realistically, he knows she’ll show up well before. She may still be young, but she’s far from stupid; she knows going into anything without a plan is nothing short of foolhardy, so he’s certain she’ll be in Paris at least a couple of days ahead of time to scope out the area and work on a disguise to infiltrate the negotiations. It’s what he would do, and she always was good at picking up his habits.

After a while, Charles stands and walks over, peering down at the map as Erik’s black pen roves over it. “Here,” he says suddenly, pointing at Rue Boyer. “There used to be a place there, La Bellevilloise. It was our favorite when we came to Paris. The Hotel de Crillon, too.” He traces a finger down along the streets. “We stayed there for a week. Raven loved it. Very historical.”

“I doubt she’s come to Paris to revisit all her favorite tourist spots,” Erik points out.

Charles withdraws his finger. “You’re right. I just thought…well.”

As he moves toward the window again, Erik circles the points he’d indicated. “It can’t hurt to check,” he says without meeting Charles’ eyes. “We can hit those spots if she isn’t anywhere else.”

Once they’ve mapped out a route, they hail a cab and start off. Charles settles on the far seat and immediately pulls a travel guide out from the seat pocket in front of him and flips through it. Erik can take a hint, especially one as unsubtle as this. He gives the driver the address and then pretends to look over the map again as he focuses on Charles in his peripheral vision.

He’s struck by the memory of a different Charles in a different time: his trimmed hair brushing his ears, his jaw clean-shaven, the collar of his ironed business shirt only barely covering the red bruise Erik’s teeth had left at his neck the night before. Even eleven years later, he remembers details of that day vividly: the taxi’s faint odor of smoke and alcohol, the way the air outside had smelled after a scattered rain, how Charles had grinned at him in the backseat as Darwin had pulled out onto the street, muttering about how they’d better not be some kind of pedophiles because he’d toss them out into the street at forty miles an hour if they tried anything.

The flood of bitter nostalgia that washes over him is like an open-handed slap to the face. When he blinks, the image vanishes. The Charles in front of him is a man he no longer knows.

Erik is angry and he has every right to be. For all those years he had languished in prison, a part of him, no matter how small, had always been certain that Charles would come, to at least get answers if not to help him escape. Realistically, he had known Charles would not come. He had rationalized to himself that they had no obligation to each other, and that Charles was undoubtedly busy. And that was fine—if Charles were out there fighting for mutantkind as they had always discussed, then Erik would be the last person in the world to begrudge him for it. Erik would never condemn what was necessary.

But to have escaped and seen immediately that Charles was now nothing better than an addict and an alcoholic, to hear from Hank that there was no school, not anymore—he can’t explain his disappointment. He can’t explain his implacable _fury_. He’d been angry after Cuba, when he’d lost Angel and Janos and Azazel in quick succession, all deaths that could have been prevented if Charles had only been there with him to warn him of the impending danger. But that had been nothing compared to the rage that had consumed him earlier when Charles had grabbed him by his collar in the plane and shouted about being abandoned, when _he’d_ been the one to abandon Erik in the hands of the humans for ten intolerable years. He had left Erik to the mercy of the humans while he had gone off and—what? Shot up on drugs to dull the outside world and forget his responsibility to it? Acquainted himself with one whiskey bottle after another? Erik had wanted to pick him up and shake him until his skull rattled. He’d wanted to break Charles’ jaw for all the lives his inaction had cost them.

But the truth has never been that simple. He watches the way Charles’ hand rubs absently along his thigh, like he’s massaging out an ache that’s always present. He’d noticed, too, the way Hank hovers around Charles constantly, as if at any moment Charles might crack and Hank would need to rush in to hold him together.

Charles’ scathing words in the hotel room circle around in Erik’s head again and again and again until he recognizes the unfamiliar ugliness blooming in his chest as guilt. He’s unused to this sick feeling in his stomach. For most of his life, he’s learned from his mistakes but never apologized for them. To give any admission of guilt would destroy him, a lesson he’d learned from what had happened with his mother. In the years after her death, he’d buried his culpability deep enough to forget about it, because it had been the only way to move on. It had been the only way to survive.

He can’t bury what he did to Charles. The evidence stares him inescapably in the face, daring him to deny it. Guilt, he finds, is a potent remedy for anger.

As the cab leaves them on the curb, Erik grabs Charles’ arm. “Listen,” he says lowly, “what I said on the plane—I meant it. I _am_ sorry. More than you know.”

Charles stares at him for a moment, keen blue eyes searching his. He doesn’t know what Charles is looking for and doesn’t know what Charles sees, but when Charles looks away, he gets the sinking feeling he’s failed some test. “It’s fine, Erik,” he says, frustratingly dismissive. “Let’s just focus on what we have to do, alright?”

Shaking off Erik’s hand, he turns to walk on ahead. Watching him go, Erik isn’t sure how to feel. His anger is unfair, his apologies met with indifference. He doesn’t know what Charles wants. He doesn’t even know what he himself wants.

There’s no point in speculating, he thinks grimly as he lengthens his stride to catch up. When this is all over and Mystique has been dealt with, the only thing Charles will feel for him anymore is hate.

 


	2. Chapter 2

TWO

The temple is almost preternaturally silent. The only sounds that fill the room are the soft grunts Logan occasionally lets out, twitching where he lies on the table. He and Kitty are breathing almost in sync, one slow inhalation after another. Erik has been listening to their breaths grow shakier and shakier for the last two hours. He doesn’t know if that’s an indication of how poorly Logan’s mission in the past is going or if it’s merely a sign of exertion, but either way, he isn’t optimistic. There are too many ways to fail.

“There’s a reason everyone thinks you’re depressing,” Charles remarks quietly by his side.

Erik pushes amusement at him. “You don’t have to listen in.”

“Yes, well. Someone has to keep you in line.”

“You just like being in my mind. It’s alright, you don’t have to admit it. I know.”

 _I spent so long blocked from it_ , Charles says without looking at him. _You can’t blame me for indulging myself now, for as long as we have left._

Erik lays a hand on the back of his chair, unable to hold back the frankly embarrassing swell of fondness that Charles undoubtedly detects. _You’re a sentimental old fool, do you know that?_

Charles’ smile is no more than a ghostly impression pressed against his mind. _No more than you._

They might have said more, but at that moment, Logan lets out a yell that startles all of them and begins to thrash on the table. “He’s slipping!” Kitty shouts, her eyes wide. “I don’t know if I can hold him!”

His face contorting, Logan lashes out, his claws a blur through the air. Erik raises his hand to immobilize him but he isn’t quick enough: the tips of Logan’s claws catch Kitty in the arm and she cries out in pain, her hands shaking violently at Logan’s temples. Erik slams Logan’s flailing limbs back down onto the table hard enough to bruise as Bobby rushes to Kitty’s side, holding her shoulders as she sways.

“I’m okay,” she says faintly. “I’m okay.”

Bobby hisses as he peels back the shredded fabric of her sleeve. “You’re bleeding pretty badly.”

Charles pushes his chair forward. “Erik, if you’d please…”  

At his request, Erik takes the handkerchief Charles offers—and trust Charles to have a handkerchief even now, when the rest of the world has crumbled away—and walks it to Bobby, who presses it against Kitty’s injured arm. She squeezes her eyes shut when he does but otherwise doesn’t falter. Erik finds himself momentarily proud of her strength; she’s grown so much from the little girl he’d first encountered all those years ago.

As he watches red soak through the white handkerchief, he thinks, _It’s not going well, is it?_

 _Who can say?_ Charles replies, though Erik can feel his exhaustion like it’s his own. Their strength is flagging as the hours wear on. Even Charles’ hope can’t last forever.

Before long, Logan quiets again, his eyes shifting restlessly behind his eyelids. Kitty is pale and her breathing is more labored than before, but she holds steady. Bobby grips her shoulder, his face drawn with worry, but none of them asks if Kitty needs to stop.

There’s no stopping now.

 

*

 

The situation at the Hotel Majestic goes to shit almost as soon as they arrive.

“Something’s wrong,” Logan growls, unsheathing his claws as they hurry down the hall. “I can feel it.”

“This way,” Hank says, ushering them left. Their reconnaissance of the hotel has paid off: Hank knows exactly where Trask will be and exactly how to direct them. Running along behind him, Charles only prays they’re not too late.

His heart drops through his stomach when they burst through the door to find Raven writhing on the conference table, her back arched in agony. Charles rushes to her, eyes wide, but before he can reach for her, Erik seizes his arm and drags him back a step. Angry, he twists to break free, but Erik shakes him roughly and points to what look like charged electrodes piercing the skin of Raven’s calf. Only once the electrodes are safely out of the way does Erik release him.

Shooting him a glance of wordless thanks, Charles hurries forward to Raven, who’s gone limp on the table, her head lolling. “Raven? Can you hear me? It’s Charles.” Forcing his voice to keep level, he strokes a hand down her hair, like he used to when they were children and he was trying to calm her after a nightmare. “Raven, it’s me. We’ve come for you, Erik and I. Together.”

Her gaze is so vague and hazy with pain that for a moment, he’s afraid she might pass out entirely. But then slowly, her yellow eyes find his face and focus. Recognition sparks through the daze, and she whispers, “Charles?”

He can’t help but smile. Despite the fact that they’re standing in a room full of unconscious diplomats, despite the circumstances of their reunion, he’s unbelievably happy to see her. His heart is lighter than it’s been in ages as he says, “Come on, can you stand? We’ve got to get out of here before security shows up. Put your arm around me now, let’s go—”

Erik grabs her other arm and helps lever her off the table. “They’re coming,” he says as they steady Raven between them. “I can feel their weapons.”

“Can you lead us to an exit away from them?”

“No, they’re too close.”

Charles grimaces. With Raven leaning heavily on both of them, it’ll be difficult to make a quick, clean escape. Judging by the shouting drawing near them, they’re out of time. Alright, think, _think_.

“Logan,” he says, turning as best he can with Raven’s weight against him. He means to ask if Logan can slow the guards down and perhaps create a diversion, but the question fades as he takes in Logan’s wide-eyed, vacant expression, frozen in a mask of horror as he stares down at one of the men on the floor. “Logan?”

“There’s no time for this,” Erik says. “Hank, take her arm. I’ll deal with them.”

Charles tries to grab for him but nearly loses his grip on Raven as he does. “Erik, wait! We said—”

Erik smiles sardonically. “Don’t worry, Charles, I won’t kill your precious humans. Take Mystique and go.”

He’s out the door before Charles can stop him. Thankfully, Raven’s gotten her feet under her so Charles doesn’t buckle under her entire weight. “Laundry chute,” she breathes. “There’s one around the corner at the end of the hall.”

He nods. “Alright, let’s go. Logan? Logan!”

Hank grabs Logan’s shoulder, probably meaning to catch his attention. The touch is enough to startle Logan into motion, his claws blurring through the air as they arc toward Hank’s head. Only Hank’s reflexes save him, twisting his body to the side so the claws cut harmlessly through the air by his ear.

It’s an accident, it must be, but when Logan snarls at them in clear hostility and brandishes his claws defensively, Charles realizes something is very wrong.

“Who the fuck are you?” Logan growls.

“What?” Hank stares at him, baffled. “I’m Hank. Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

When he tries to take a step forward, Logan aims the claws of his left hand at Hank’s face. “Take another step, bub, and I’ll put these through your eye.”

“Logan, come on,” Charles snaps impatiently by the doorway. “We haven’t got time for this!”

Logan doesn’t budge, his eyes narrowed distrustfully. His stance is guarded as he regards them all with unveiled aggression. “Who are you? Where am I?”

This is going really well, Charles thinks furiously. Really fucking well.

“Hank,” he orders, “take Raven to the laundry chute and get out. I’ll handle Logan.”

“Charles—”

“Just _go!”_

Doubtfully, Hank obeys. As soon as they’ve slipped out the door, Charles raises both hands and says as gently as he can manage, “Logan, it’s alright. I’m not your enemy.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Charles Xavier. We’re—friends. Of a sort. Look, we’re in a hotel right now and we’ve got to get out because we’re not supposed to be here, so let’s go, yeah? Run now, questions later.”

When Logan’s mistrustful glare doesn’t abate, Charles is halfway certain that he’s about to be skewered right through the throat. But either he makes a good case or he simply looks more harmless than he’d like to think because Logan nods once, sharply, and says, “Where to?”

Charles takes a breath and tries to infuse some confidence into his voice. “Right. Follow me.”

 

*

 

The hotel rooms are empty when they return. Raven clearly needs to sit down, but Hank is hesitant to allow her out of his sight, so he pulls her along as he checks both rooms for signs of the others. There’s nothing to indicate that anyone’s been here since they left this morning—he and Raven must be the first ones back. Trying to quell the uneasiness that rises inside him, he returns to his room, locks the door, and sits Raven down on the cramped sofa.

“Are you okay?” he asks as he yanks the curtains closed. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

Raven bows her head to rest it against her hands. “No, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Whatever they hit you with—we don’t know what kind of damage electrical shock like that could do—”

“Hank. I’m fine.”

Releasing a pent-up breath, he resists the urge to check her over anyway and instead cracks the curtains back open minutely to peer outside. The street below doesn’t run along the front door, but if the others are angling for the side door, they should be visible from this window. But he doesn’t recognize anyone in the crowd milling on the sidewalk below. Charles is nowhere to be found.

“Are they coming?” Raven asks from behind him.

“Not yet. But Charles can take care of himself.”

It’s a hollow reassurance: he knows better than anyone that Charles is not the same man he was eleven years ago. But it’s better than nothing.

“You’re the last person I expected to show up,” Raven remarks after another moment. “You and Charles.”

He doesn’t turn to face her. He’s not sure he could look her in the eye without feeling his pulse tremble through his body. “It’s a long story.”

“I can imagine. The last I heard, you two were locked up in Charles’ mansion doing nothing but sitting on your ass all day.”

“It was more than that.”

“Sitting on your ass all day and growing your hair,” Raven amends contemptuously. “Is Charles a hippie now? Because I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Charles isn’t the man you remember,” he says, fighting to keep his voice even. The years he’s spent playing the role of Charles’ sole caretaker has engendered a protectiveness that has him bristling. “You don’t know what he’s been through.”  

“Right.” Raven’s laugh is sharp and humorless. “In the mansion, where he doesn’t have to give a shit about what everyone else has been through.”

“I’m not—” He clenches his hand against the windowsill and focuses on the way the skin pulls tight at his knuckles. “We didn’t come here to fight.”

“Then what _did_ you come here for?”

To stop her from killing Trask. To keep her safe.

“It’s complicated,” he says, flexing his hand restlessly. “We should wait until Charles gets back. He’ll explain everything.”

The conversation lapses into silence. After a few minutes, Hank moves away from the window to sit on the bed, doing his best not to glance Raven’s way. It’s been eleven years since he’s seen her face-to-face, though he’s been tracking her through news and rumors for what seems like an age. He used to dream about meeting her again, used to spend hours at a time scripting what he would say to her when they did. What they’d had had been short, and he won’t deny that they’d been young and it couldn’t have been more than puppy love but…but she’d made a lasting impression on him that he hasn’t been able to shake for over a decade.

He knows better than to believe that they can ever have again what they’d once shared those happy few months at the mansion, but he’s glad to have the chance to see her now. For…closure, he supposes.

Footsteps stop directly outside their door. As quick as Hank is to his feet, Raven is quicker, the scales along her arm rippling in wary agitation. But it’s only Charles and Logan, who slip through the door hurriedly and shove it shut behind them.

“Were you followed?” Hank asks.

Charles shakes his head. “No. Where’s Erik?”

“Not back yet.” Hank eyes Logan warily. “Is he…?”

Logan meets his eyes coolly. The hostility from the conference room is absent, replaced by a now-familiar dry cynicism. “Temporary insanity, bub. Sorry about almost killing you.”

Logan doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate. When he makes an impatient gesture into the room, Hank steps aside and waves them in. “Uh, no harm done. We should probably get out of here as soon as possible. They’re bound to be looking for us.”

Charles claps him on the arm as he passes. “Right. The jet?”

“Fueled and ready when we are.”

“Good. As soon as Erik gets back then, we should go.” He crosses over to the sofa, where Raven is standing guardedly. “Are you alright? You didn’t have any trouble getting back here?”

“I’m fine,” Raven mutters. “What are you doing here?”

“Let’s talk when we’re in the air,” Charles says.

He moves toward the window, but Raven catches his arm above the elbow, her eyes narrowed as they meet his. “What makes you think I’m going anywhere with you?”

Charles stares at her. “We just saved you back there.”  

“I could have handled myself,” Raven growls. “And I don’t give a shit if you saved me, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

They lock eyes for a long, tense minute. If Charles had had his telepathy, Hank might have assumed they were speaking mind-to-mind, but as it is, he knows Charles is simply doing his best to decipher Raven’s expression. Charles always used to have a way of staring you intently in the eye as you spoke, as if he had no attention to spare for anyone or anything else in that moment but you. Ever since he lost his powers, that habit has intensified, as if he’s trying to make up for his lost advantage by becoming an expert in reading facial cues. But he’s still not very good at it, if the way his mouth pinches in frustration is any indication.

The click of the door unlocking interrupts their argument. All of them tense for the handful of seconds it takes for them to recognize who steps through, and once they do, their rigid stances relax. Behind Hank, Charles lets out a breath that almost sounds relieved.  

“Good,” Erik says as he shuts the door behind him. “Everyone made it. Let’s go.”

Raven lifts her chin. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Erik looks at her, nonplussed. “Where else are you going to go? They’ll be looking for you all through the city.”

She laughs. “You think I can’t evade some police officers? Please.”

“We still need to talk,” Charles interjects, “and obviously it won’t be safe here for long. The jet would be best—”

“Why? So you can bundle me off wherever you want afterwards? No thank you.”  

“So you won’t come,” Erik says flatly.

Raven’s eyes are fierce and defiant. Even now, Hank is impressed by the way she meets Erik’s eyes without flinching, without giving any ground. He always did admire her bravery. “No.”

Erik’s lips thin. “Alright. I’d hoped to do this more cleanly but you aren’t leaving me many options.”

He pulls a gun from his jacket and aims it straight at Raven’s head. Hank’s entire body freezes in place, all his normally fast-paced thoughts crashing to the floor like so many broken puppets. He tries to yell, he tries to warn Raven, he tries to leap in front of her, but nothing happens—he can’t move. He can’t even _breathe_ , sheer terror nailing him to the spot in a moment of utter helplessness. He can only watch in horror as Erik’s finger tightens on the trigger and—

Charles steps back, right in front of the barrel.

The finger pauses. “Get out of the way, Charles,” Erik says calmly.

Charles only stares at him. “Erik, what are you doing?”

“What is necessary,” Erik says, the gun unwavering in his hand. “What you never could.”

“We came here to _save_ her—”

Impatience flickers across Erik’s expression. “Her blood, Charles. It’s the key to our destruction, you said. I’m merely removing it from the equation.”

“ _Removing_ —” Charles splutters. “Erik, she’s my _sister_ , not a piece of some bloody equation. Put the gun down!”

Erik doesn’t get a chance to answer: Logan slams into him from the side, hitting him hard enough to send them both flying. But it doesn’t stop Erik’s power from holding the gun steady, doesn’t stop Erik from ripping the radiator straight out of the wall and slamming it into Logan’s skull. Taking advantage of Logan’s daze, Erik rolls to his feet, and now Charles is no longer in his line of sight when he calls the gun to his hand and aims it—

Raven ripples. She’s much faster at shifting than she used to be: in the time it takes Hank to blink, Raven disappears.

Charles stands in her place, the Charles from 1962 with his blue cardigan and his guileless eyes and his gentle smile.  

And Erik—Erik _hesitates_.

But only for a split second: Raven whirls on her heel, and the spell is broken. Erik pulls the trigger with a snarl, the gunshot deafening in the tight space. Hank screams as he watches Raven stagger and finally, _finally_ , his body responds—he hurls himself forward and reaches to pull her to him to shield her but she’s already scrambling up and away, throwing herself at the window with shattering force and it gives under her weight with the crunch of splintered glass and she’s gone.

Hank is only dimly aware of Charles tackling Erik and wrestling him for the gun. His heart thudding in his throat, he rushes to the windowsill and peers down, half-expecting to see Raven crumpled on the sidewalk below. But she’s gone.

It’s only when one of the passerby looks up at him and begins to scream that he realizes his hands are paws and his glasses are slipping off his nose, too small now for his face. With a curse, he jerks back into the room, appalled at his lack of control. He hasn’t shifted forms unintentionally in years.

Logan appears at his shoulder, leaning over to glance out the window. “She gone?”

He nods mechanically.

“Damn,” Logan mutters. “Thanks for all the help with Magneto, by the way, couldn’t have done it without you.”

Belatedly, he remembers the threat still in the room with them and whirls, claws bared. But it’s already over: Erik is unconscious on the floor between the beds, Charles sitting next to him with blood running from his nose. “She’s gone?” Charles asks tiredly, pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger.

“Gone,” Hank confirms, “and we have to go. Someone’s probably already called the police.”

“Right.” Gripping the edge of the nightstand, Charles pulls himself to his feet. Then he stands there for a long moment, holding his sleeve to his nose as he stares dispassionately down at Erik.

“Hank, grab his arm,” he orders finally. “Help me get him up.”

“Charles…”

“Hank.” Though Charles’ gaze is firm, the twist of his mouth is exhausted and pleading. “We can’t leave him here for the police to find. You know as well as I that that would be more dangerous for them than it would be for him. Help me, please.”

The last thing Hank wants to do in that moment is give Erik any sort of aid. But Charles is right: there’s no telling what sort of damage Erik might do if he wakes up in a human prison ill-prepared to contain him. It’ll be safest to take him with them now and determine how to deal with him later, when they’re not trying to evade the authorities.

Hank yanks Erik up by his arm a little more roughly than necessary and nods. “Let’s go.”

 

*

 

Erik comes to slowly, hovering in and out of consciousness for an interminable amount of time. He’s dimly aware of voices arguing around him in hushed tones, sometimes calm, mostly angry. They’re speaking too quietly for him to make out any words, but he can feel that they’re discussing him, and none-too-kindly at that.   

Finally he manages to blink his eyes open. His head is muffled, as if it’s been swathed in cotton, and his limbs feel heavy and strange. Even groggy, he realizes immediately that something is wrong.

There’s no metal. He reaches out and out in a panic but there’s no _metal,_ and his breath catches hard in his chest in paralyzing fear.

The terror lasts only a handful of seconds: soon enough, he realizes the ceiling above him is dark, paneled wood rather than an expanse of white cement and glass. Better still, he recognizes the sight, though he’d spent only a handful of weeks sleeping under it over a decade ago.

“You’re awake.”

He turns his head to find Charles sitting in the armchair by the bed, lit only by the shaded lamp on the nightstand. The limited light darkens the shadows under Charles’ eyes and makes him look more a skeleton than a man. Only the gleaming blue of his eyes seems to indicate any vitality.   

“What am I doing here?” he asks, not bothering to sit up.

“We decided not to leave you for the police,” Charles replies coldly. “You’re welcome.”

Erik lifts his gaze back to the ceiling. “Your room. Quite the accommodation.”

“I wanted to keep an eye on you and…” Charles glances away, his mouth pressing into a thin line. Only when he raises the glass in his hand to his lips does Erik notice the nearly-empty bottle of whiskey on the nightstand beside the lamp. “It seemed easiest,” he finishes after a moment. “Until we decide what we’re going to do with you.”

“What you’re going to do with me.” Erik glances up at his right arm, which is handcuffed to the headboard. Metal, surely, but when he tries to touch the cuff—nothing. Burying the automatic spasm of panic, he tugs at the restraint and says as coolly as he can manage, “I’m surprised you brought me back here at all. I’m sure a trip to the Pentagon wouldn’t have taken long.”

“Believe me, I was tempted.”

“But?”

“But…” Charles smiles bitterly. “You did always call me a fool.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. Erik has hurt him so many times over and still Charles believes in him. Erik would have put a bullet through Raven’s skull if he’d been given the chance and still Charles protected him from the humans and brought him back into his home. Charles may act cynical all he likes but there’s something of his kindness left still, and Erik can’t decide if he despises Charles for that or loves him.

“You _are_ a fool,” Erik says at last, though the words aren’t nearly as biting as they could be.

“I know.”

After a moment, Charles drains his glass and gets up to refill it. Erik watches the way Charles’ hand trembles minutely against the bottle and wonders how many glasses he’s already downed, sitting there in the near-dark as Erik slept.

He remembers Charles telling him that his mother drank. They had been exploring the wine cellar below the house and Charles had run his thumb along the cork of one of the bottles and said, smiling sardonically, “She was fonder of the drink than she was of me.” Erik hadn’t known what to say, so he’d pressed Charles up against the shelf and kissed him, fierce but gentle. He’d brought Charles off with his hand and then rutted against Charles’ hip until he’d come with a gasp, and then they’d leaned against each other for a minute, breathing in sawdust and silence.

He’s startled by how vividly the memory returns to him. He can still remember the taste of Charles’ mouth, and the way Charles’ smile had softened when he’d met Erik’s eyes afterwards and panted, “You’ve no idea how fond I am of _you_ right now.”

He shakes the recollection away. “What did you do to me?”

Charles glances at him as he recaps the bottle. “Besides bring you safely back here?”

“Don’t play oblivious, Charles.” Sitting up, Erik rattles the handcuff, pulling sharply enough for the metal to bite painfully around his wrist. “I can’t feel this.”

“Nor can you feel any other metal, I imagine,” Charles says calmly. “Hank gave you a dose of the serum. We’d rather not have you pulling the house down around our ears as we discuss your future.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“You know the answer to that.”

“You’re as bad as they are,” Erik growls, yanking harder at the cuff. The panic, which he’d tamped ruthlessly down, begins to seep up through the cracks. “For ten years they held me in that glass prison without any metal. For ten years I couldn’t see the world the way I’d seen it my whole life. Do you know how easy it is to lose your mind when the world around you feels false?”

For the first time, Charles hesitates. His impassive mask begins to chip at the edges—and then it crumbles away entirely. Underneath, he merely looks exhausted.

“What would you have me do, Erik?” he asks tiredly. “You tried to kill my sister. You probably would have killed me if Logan hadn’t knocked you out. You would call me a bigger fool if I trusted you now.”

“I have no desire to harm you or the others,” Erik tells him. “I was only doing what was necessary.”

Charles’ eyes narrow. “Necessary.”

“If she is allowed to live, the threat will always be there. The humans may get their hands on her—if not Trask, then someone else, and by the time we try to end the threat then, it will be too late.”

“ _May_ ,” Charles echoes, a spark of anger putting some life in his eyes at last. “You would have killed my sister because of the _possibility_ that she might be used to harm us.”

“Too great a possibility,” Erik retorts. “It _happened_ , in the future Logan comes from.”

“He came back to warn us to stop her, to protect her, not to kill her!”

“Protecting her is a temporary solution. A more permanent one…”

Erik leaves the thought unfinished.  

“So you kill her and burn her body,” Charles says cuttingly. The anger in his eyes is wild now. “Do you think that’s the end of it then? Trask or others like him will never benefit from another mutant? Logan’s regenerative powers would be quite useful, wouldn’t they? You ought to kill him as soon as you can. Hank as well—there’s no telling what they would do with his intelligence and strength. And _me—_ ” He barks a harsh laugh. “Can you imagine what they would do with my telepathy? How easily they could find mutants with my power? God knows _that_ threat can’t go unaddressed. I’ll help you—”

He grabs Erik’s free hand and shoves it at his throat, pressing Erik’s thumb directly above his windpipe. He clearly means to say more, but the instant they touch, something that’s very much not anger burns through Charles’ gaze and Erik feels him swallow, heavy and hard.

“There,” he says hoarsely, his voice barely a whisper. “Do it.”

Erik digs his thumb in, just slightly, just until Charles winces. Then he lets go.

“Killing Raven won’t solve this,” Charles says, one hand rubbing at his throat.

“Maybe,” Erik concedes. “But can you see another way?” At Charles’ silence, he smiles humorlessly. “You’re always quick to condemn my methods, Charles, but you have no alternatives to offer.”

Charles studies him for a moment, his stare unreadable. Erik waits for the light touch of Charles’ telepathy, waits for the subtle intrusion. But it doesn’t come—instead, Charles looks away and says, “Hank didn’t give you a full dose, so the serum should wear off in an hour or so. I’ll tell him not to dose you again. Don’t make me regret it.”

Charles collects the whiskey bottle and his glass and leaves, sinking deeper into the shadows the further he gets from the lamp’s circle of light. For a minute, he pauses in the doorway, as if he means to say something else. Though all Erik can make out in the darkness is Charles’ silhouette in the doorframe, he can feel Charles’ eyes on him, as heavy and tangible as a physical touch.

“I’ll get you some water,” he says at last before swinging the door shut between them.

Still too trusting, Erik thinks as he hears the lock turn. All that talk and Charles is still a fool.

 

*

 

Logan really can’t believe he’s fighting for Magneto, but here he is in Charles’ study, arguing against turning Erik back over to the authorities.

“He’s dangerous,” Hank growls, pacing from the desk to the window. “We don’t have the resources to hold him _and_ go after Raven as well. We’ve got to focus on one or the other, and there’s no question which we have to choose.”

“We can’t hand him back over to the government,” Charles says. He’s sitting in the chair behind the desk nursing a whiskey. The glass has been his constant companion all morning, and if Hank’s lack of comment is any indication, this isn’t a rare occurrence. “They’ll toss him back into that prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“What do you suggest? We keep him here?” Hank shakes his head. “We can’t trust him. I said that from the beginning. He’s following his own agenda and either we’re helping him or we’re in the way.”

“Look,” Logan interjects, “we need him.”

“Why?”

“We just…we…”

It occurs to him at that moment that he really doesn’t know. Magneto had just said…

Right. And Magneto has never had any ulterior motives, ever.

Logan tries not to consider the possibility that they’ve blundered badly.  

“We have every reason to want him out of here,” Hank continues, agitated, “and no reason to keep him. You—” he shoots a look at Logan “—said we need him but for what? Clearly he’s not going to help us with Raven. If anything, he’s working directly against us.”

Charles runs his thumb over the rim of his glass. “He’s not going back to that prison.”

“What else can we do? It’s a hard choice, I know, but someone has to make it.”

“He’s not going back to that prison,” Charles repeats, “and I doubt we have a say in it.”

Hank’s frown deepens as he stops by Charles’ desk. “I still don’t think taking him off the serum is a good idea. He could turn against us at any moment and none of us can really stop him.”

“As you said, we don’t have the resources to hold him. We can’t force him into anything. We’re going to have to talk to him.”

“Talk.” Hank barks out a disbelieving laugh. “What makes you think he’ll listen to anything we have to say? He never has before.”

Charles is quiet for a moment, his eyes locked on the way the dying sunlight catches on the curved edges of his glass. Then he throws back the rest of remainder of the whiskey and mutters, “We still have to try.”

When he gets up and reaches for the decanter, Logan catches his arm. Far be it for him to judge another man for indulging in drink but he knows for a fact Charles doesn’t have a liver that heals itself. Plus, they need him sober. “Maybe you should slow down there, Chuck.”

Charles yanks his arm free, his lip curling. “I’ll listen to what you have to say on the future but keep your other advice to yourself.”

Logan glances over at Hank for some assistance, but Hank is pointedly looking away. He gets the sense that this is an argument that’s been brought up and rehashed often between the two of them, to the point where the conclusion is foregone. The slosh of liquid against the bottom of the glass is the only sound that fills the study for a few seconds, while Logan watches and Hank pretends not to.

The sigh Charles lets out at the first swallow sounds tired and fractured. “We can’t set him loose. We can’t keep him here. We can’t turn him over to the authorities. What _can_ we do?”

“You can let me help you.”

All three of them startle in almost the same motion. Logan’s claws itch just beneath his skin, ready to shoot out in defense at any hint of danger. But Erik simply stops in the doorway, nothing menacing in his expression or stance.

Hank’s brow furrows. “You…the serum…” He shoots a puzzled glance at Charles.

“He didn’t uncuff me,” Erik says. He shifts his wrist behind his back but not before Logan sees the thin line of blood there, probably from pulling on the restraint until it broke skin. “You think I can’t pick a lock?”

“You tried to kill Raven,” Hank says, and he sounds the closest to murderous as Logan might have ever heard him.

Erik is unrepentant. “I did what I thought was best.”

“For _you_ ,” Hank snarls, lunging.

Logan steps forward to intervene but Charles, for all the alcohol he’s tossed back, is quicker: he darts in between Hank and Erik and stops Hank with a firm hand on his chest. He’s considerably smaller than the men on either side of him and it would take no effort at all to shove him aside, but both of them still.

Even painfully young and drunk and unkempt, Charles Xavier has a power Logan can admire.

“Hank,” Charles orders, “take a seat.”

“Charles—”

“Take a _seat,_ ” he repeats, giving Hank a shove toward the nearby armchair. “You too, Erik.”

They size each other up for a tense moment, probably considering whether or not they can get their hands around each other’s throats before Charles tears them apart. Hank is the first to break eye contact, turning away with a muted growl. Only then does Erik take the seat Charles points at, on the opposite side of the room from Hank.

“Right,” Charles says, crossing his arms. “Now let’s talk.”

“You know my feelings on the matter,” Hank mutters.

“I do. Logan?”

It takes a few seconds for it to register that Charles is asking his opinion. “Me?” Logan says, raising both eyebrows.

“Yes, you,” Charles says impatiently. “Of all of us, you know the most about what’s going to happen and you’re arguably the most objective. Tell us your thoughts.”

His thoughts are that he’s never the brains of any operation; he’s good at taking orders and bashing skulls in and that’s about it. But he was sent here to provide some sort of guidance and if the only way he’s going to stop the war is by pretending he knows what the fuck he’s talking about, then dammit, he’s going to fake wisdom and hope it sticks.

“Look,” he says, “what I know is that fifty years from now, the two of you do us all a favor and get your shit together and that’s what keeps most of us alive longer than we would’ve survived otherwise. Now I’m not saying we should trust him,” he adds, jabbing a finger at Erik, “because we’ve spent way too many years trying to murder each other, even if he doesn’t know it yet. But there’s a reason we broke him out.”

“Yeah,” Hank says, eyes narrowed, “you told us to.”

“I told you to because _they_ told me to.” And as much as he’s wary of Magneto’s intentions, he trusts the Professor’s. The Professor hadn’t flinched when Magneto had told Logan he’d need the both of them, hadn’t even looked like he was about to argue. His tacit agreement is enough to keep Logan believing in Erik’s usefulness, at least for now.

Hank scowls. Logan is beginning to think that that’s the kid’s resting face. “And they didn’t tell you why?”

“No. But I trust Charles.” When Charles’ nose wrinkles in skepticism, he amends, “Well, future you.”

“And me?” Erik asks, arching an eyebrow.

“Honestly, I’d rather stick my claws through your chest so we wouldn’t have to keep looking over our shoulders,” Logan answers. “But that would probably set us back, so I won’t.”

“I’m touched.”

“Should be. I don’t dirty up my claws for just anybody.”

Erik bares his teeth. “Spare me the honor.”

“Alright,” Charles cuts in before Logan can retort, “so you think Erik should stay.”

“I’m telling you what I know.”

“Right. That makes two votes to keep working together.”

“Two?” Hank echoes.

“Logan makes one. I make another.”

“Charles!” Hank sounds scandalized and more than a little betrayed. “After what he did to you—”

“What he did to _all of us_ is in the past,” Charles growls, and Logan has never heard a more blatantly false denial but he refrains from commenting. “We need to focus on Raven right now and he knows her best. If anyone can track her, he can. We’ll need to use that.”

“He tried to kill her!” Hank exclaims, outraged.

“It was a mistake,” Charles says icily. His grip around his drink is white-knuckled. “He won’t try again.”

There’s a dark promise in his voice. Logan has no doubt that Charles will find a way to stop Erik if it comes to that, even powerless as he is.

“I suppose I get no say in this,” Erik says after a pause.

“Of course you do,” Charles replies coolly. “Your vote is?”

Erik doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll stay.”

“Of course he’ll say that when the alternative is prison,” Hank snaps.

Erik meets his glare evenly. “I could leave right now if I wanted and there would be nothing you could do to stop me. But I’ll stay.”

“Why?”

“The problem hasn’t changed. If Mystique kills Trask and gets herself captured, the humans will win. I’m still invested in stopping that.”

Sensing a losing battle there, Hank switches his attention to Charles. “We can’t trust him. What happens when we find Raven again? We’re going to give him another chance to kill her? What if he succeeds this time?”

“He’ll stay,” Charles says firmly, “and he’ll help. But he’s going to obey my rules without question, without exception. Any violation of my conditions, Erik, and I swear to God, I will put you down myself.”

Logan expects Erik to laugh. He expects some snort of derision, some quip about Charles’ lack of power and Erik’s abundance of it. But nothing of the sort comes: the Magneto of the past is apparently significantly less given to condescending amusement than the one Logan knows because this Erik only nods, his mouth pressed in one flat line.

“Good,” Charles says, his smile cheerless. “Then let’s get to work.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to KatiaSwift for the swift (ha!) beta.

THREE

Erik asks for maps, a computer, a pen, and Hank. It becomes quickly apparent that Charles’ sole role in their hunt for Raven is to make sure Hank and Erik don’t end up murdering each other before the night is over.

“We need to consider her most likely hiding spots,” Erik says, tapping the pen against the table. They’ve gathered in the lab downstairs where the mansion’s most powerful computers are housed. Hank sits behind the keyboard, pointedly not looking at Erik, who’s sitting across from him with the maps spread out across the table’s surface. “Since she’s injured—”

“No thanks to you,” Hank mutters.

Erik pauses. “If you’re looking for an apology, you’ll be disappointed.”

Hank’s hand clenches into a fist. “So you see nothing wrong with what you did. She followed you, she _believed_ in you and you just—you _turned_ on her.”

“Unlike you,” Erik replies calmly, “I’m able to see the bigger picture here.”

“The bigger _picture?”_

“Hank,” Charles says from the end of the table. “Please.”

Hank fixes him with an incredulous look. “I’m sorry, Charles, but I don’t see why you’re not alarmed by the fact that he’s perfectly okay with turning on his own allies. Doesn’t that worry you even a _little?”_

Of course it worries him a little. Aside from Raven, it’s his greatest worry and also one of his greatest reassurances. It’s a strange thing to be thankful for, but uncertainty has been his constant companion for the last ten years. After the beach, he’d been plagued by doubts about his recovery and about his competence as a brother, a friend, a lover. He’d spent years painstakingly fighting through the red tape of school accreditation and licensing and registration. He’d fought against the misgivings of parents, relatives, and students alike. In those terrible, uncertain months of the lottery, waiting to hear who would be the next to leave him for Vietnam, he’d struggled with the doubt that the school would ever survive, and then with the realization that it wouldn’t.

But the fact that Erik has his own agenda and will pursue it regardless of what Charles wants and says: that is certain. And in a way, it’s a relief.

“Where do you think she’ll go?” he asks Erik, ignoring Hank’s disbelieving stare.

“If it were me, I’d steer clear from hospitals, but she can take on anyone’s shape. We’d never be able to track her if she didn’t use her own name and her natural form, and we know she’s not so stupid. So she’d be alright in a hospital, if she wanted.”

“Getting professional medical aid is easier than stealing supplies and trying to sort out the wound yourself,” Charles muses. “She wouldn’t be foolish enough to risk infection or the like, I would think.”

Erik shakes his head. “I taught her better than that.”

Charles’ heart gives a painful squeeze. “Yes. I suppose you did.”

Something in his voice makes Erik look over, but Charles averts his gaze, trying to focus on the unmarked map under his hands. Even after all this time, it still stings that Raven left him. It still feels like all those years he spent nurturing and sheltering her thrown back in his face.

“Hospitals in the area then,” Erik says, scribbling something down on a notepad. “It’s a long shot, but that’s where I’d start. After that, she’ll have to find a place to lay low so she can plan her next move. Staying in Paris is too risky; it’d be safest to leave France altogether.”

“Great,” Logan says sardonically from the corner, where he’s browsing through some old pamphlets for the school. Charles had thought he’d shredded all of them but apparently Hank stowed some of them away in the lab. “Anywhere but France. That narrows things down.”

Erik’s pen pauses over the paper. “If you want to take over, be my guest.”

“No, no, by all means.”

Erik eyes him for a moment before carrying on. “As I was saying, leaving France would be best. She’ll go somewhere familiar, maybe a safe house in the area. Before JFK, we’d stockpiled some supplies in a few locations in Europe. She might go there.”

Charles blinks. “What were you doing in Europe?”

Erik gives him a patient look. “Mutants exist outside of America, Charles.”

“I—knew that. Of course.” For some reason, he’d just always thought that in that year after Cuba, Erik had wandered somewhere in the United States. Somewhere within easy reach.

“Chances are those safe houses are cleared out by now,” Erik continues with a frown. “It’s been ten years after all. It couldn’t hurt to check though.”

“We can’t go flying the X-Jet all over Europe,” Hank points out. “We don’t have time for that.”

“Of course we can’t. I meant Charles can check.”

Hank’s expression shutters. Charles can feel his own doing much the same. “I can’t.”

“You once told me that with some practice on Cerebro, you could probably reach halfway around the world.”

“Once,” Charles says, fighting a frown. “Cerebro’s not an option anymore.”

Erik’s stare against the side of his face feels like sunlight amplified through a magnifying glass. Even now he has the urge to meet Erik’s eyes, to challenge him like he used to, but he knows he won’t like whatever he finds in Erik’s gaze. So instead he glares at the legend on the map, watching as the numbers swim meaninglessly across his vision. A small, insistent ache is starting to take form between his eyes, and he rubs at it with the base of his palm. The headaches always come with the end of a dose, which tells him he needs a shot but he doesn’t want to go fetch it. The last thing he wants to do is leave Erik alone with the others for even a second, and the _absolute_ last thing he wants is for Erik to witness his reliance on the needle. He’s just going to grit his teeth and pretend like the pressure behind his eyes isn’t growing.

“What happens if you stop taking the serum?” Erik asks finally.

“It doesn’t matter because I’m not doing it.”

“Will your powers come back? How long will it take for your telepathy to return?”

Charles clenches his fist under the table. “Erik, I said no.”

“We’re only going to find Raven if we use every resource we have,” Erik continues, undeterred. “It would be foolish not to even consider using one of our most powerful tools.”

“I’m not a _tool_ ,” Charles snarls, standing. Even he’s surprised by the rage that swells up in his voice, hot and thick in his mouth. “I’m not here to be used and then thrown away as soon as convenient. I’m not here to be _considered_ only when I’m useful. I’m not a—a fucking hammer in your toolbox, Erik!”

Erik is staring at him like he’s lost his mind. “I never said you were.”

“No, you didn’t have to,” Charles says, and he hates how his voice wavers—he _hates_ it. “What you did in Cuba said enough.”

No one says anything for a moment. In the silence, Charles’ words catch up with him and the fury shaking through his body leeches away in a rush, leaving him cold and breathless and cursing his stupid mouth. Logan is looking up from the pamphlet he was scanning, his brows furrowed together in consternation. Hank stares open-mouthed, his hands frozen above the keyboard.

He doesn’t even dare look in Erik’s direction. He just turns, nearly tripping over his chair, and runs out.

Halfway up the stairs to the ground floor, his legs go weak. Of course they do, because he can’t even make a dignified exit without fucking it up. He stumbles and hits the stairs hard on his hands and knees, crying out as the shock of the fall judders up through his bones. The familiar, dull throbbing is beginning to squeeze down his spine, a growing discomfort he tries to ignore as he gets one foot underneath him. On second thought, perhaps that last glass of whiskey hadn’t been a good idea after all. It’s making his vision blur, which complicates his attempts to stand.

Hank appears by his side, ducking under Charles’ left arm to help pull him up. “Slowly,” he says, his voice gentle. Charles grips his arm and allows Hank to shoulder his weight, since his legs are quickly losing the ability to do it for him.

“You alright?” Hank asks once they’re more or less standing. “You didn’t hurt yourself when you fell?”

“Nothing but my pride,” Charles mutters, and it’s only then that he realizes Erik and Logan are standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching. Erik has his hand on the railing, as if he’d meant to come up but stopped at the last moment. Charles turns away from his searching gaze, nauseated with shame. “Take me upstairs.”

Hank casts a quick glance over his shoulder at Erik and Logan before silently obeying. Charles steadfastly ignores the stares pressing into his back, heavy as weights around his shoulders. It’s a relief when they’ve climbed out of sight, when it’s just him and Hank again.

“The serum,” he says once they’re safely ensconced in his room. Sitting on the bed, he rolls up his sleeve with trembling fingers and digs out the tourniquet from the medical kit on the nightstand. “How much time on your watch?”

Hank glances at his wrist. “Twenty-two minutes.”

Charles exhales. Early again. “We’ll have to increase the dose.”

“Charles—”

“Do as I say!” Already he can feel the whispers in the back of his skull, insidious and menacing. He feels stupid and childlike as he presses both palms against his ears, as if that could ever shut out what lives in his head.

He’s barely aware of Hank kneeling by his side and retying his tourniquet properly. All of his focus has narrowed down to the syringe in Hank’s hand, the syringe he grabs at when Hank holds it out. One sharp sting of the needle and it’s done, filling him with relief from just the anticipation of the real relief. He forces out every drop in the syringe and then tosses it aside, letting himself fall onto his back into the bed.

Vaguely, he can hear Hank picking the syringe up off the floor and tossing the needle in the trashcan by the nightstand before zipping up the bag containing the vials of serum. When he moves toward the window, Charles stops paying attention, just closes his eyes and lets himself drift away, far into nothingness.

 

*

 

None of them moves for a long minute after Charles disappears out the door. Erik isn’t sure what just happened, even if Charles’ tone had made it perfectly clear how Charles felt on the matter. Part of him is tempted to chase after Charles and demand what the hell he’d meant by the Cuba comment. The greater, smarter part of him knows he has no business running after Charles, and worrying about Charles will distract him from more important goals at hand.

In the silence, they hear a little choked gasp, almost too quiet to catch. All of them still, wondering if they’d imagined the sound. But the muffled thump of Charles’ body against the stairs is unmistakable, as is the worry creasing Hank’s brow as he bolts toward the door. Erik is on his heels, moving before he’s aware of it, and when he sees Charles lying on the steps, his heart stops.

He’s seen too many friends and allies crumpled gracelessly on the ground to ever forget the sight. And though Charles is already trying to rise as Hank reaches him, Erik is still frozen for a handful of seconds, struck with the irrational terror that Charles is dying, that Charles is already dead. It’s a fear he never admits, even to himself, but he can’t count how many times it surfaced in his colorless dreams all those long years he spent trapped by sterile white walls and glass. Standing here now, with Charles’ aborted shout of pain echoing in his ears and the feel of metal still weak on his fingertips from the effects of the serum, he can feel his sanity shake.

“Slowly,” Hank’s saying, and Erik wants to dart up the stairs to take Charles’ other arm but he can’t move. Breathing hard through his nose, he digs his fingernails into his palm hard enough to leave deep crescent marks and tells himself firmly that this isn’t the prison. This isn’t a nightmare. Everyone is fine.

When he blinks, Charles is gone. His breath seizes in his throat and he must make some noise because Logan shoots him a wary look and says, “Something wrong?”

“Fine,” he says roughly, shoving past Logan and taking the stairs two at a time. He knows Hank must have just taken Charles upstairs to get him to lie down, but the unreasonable fear persists and he needs to see both of them, needs to know they’re alright. He can dimly feel Hank’s watch, blurred to his senses but easy enough to follow up the stairs and down the hall to one of the bedrooms to the left, a room that had been unused when Erik had last been at the mansion. Just as he reaches it, the door opens and Hank slips out, a black case tucked under his arm. He stops dead when he sees Erik standing there.

Several questions cycle through Erik’s mind in quick succession but the only one that comes out is, “Is he alright?”

Hank glares at him, clearly intending to push past, but Erik grabs his arm above the elbow and squeezes, just hard enough for Hank to wince.

“Yeah,” the boy mutters. “He’ll be okay.”

Erik releases him. “Does this happen often?”

For a second, Hank looks as if he’s about to tell Erik to piss off. He even takes a step to the side to pass, but then he steps back and says with more than a little rancor, “It happens often enough, and it’s been happening more lately. He’s suffering, you know. Every day. You weren’t here. You couldn’t see how much he’s hurt, but I’ve been here every day since you were gone and I’ve seen it all. As much as I hate you for what you’ve done to Raven, I hate you more for what you’ve done to Charles. You broke something in him and I don’t know if he’ll ever really be okay again.”

Hank’s vitriol nearly rivals Charles’ own. Erik could almost be proud of him for such anger and strength.

“Are you done?” he asks when Hank pauses for breath.

Fury twists across Hank’s normally mild-mannered face. Erik, who has seen that expression countless times before on his enemies, fully expects a blow, but Hank merely snaps, “You’re an asshole,” before stalking past him and disappearing down the hall.

Erik had expected at least a warning to keep away from Charles, but Hank is gone in a storm of emotion, leaving the bedroom door cracked open behind him. There’s no one to stop him, no one to get between him and Charles. Still Erik hesitates. _Walk away_ , he tells himself, hovering with his hand on the doorknob. _You’re stronger than a few night terrors, walk **away**. _

When he closes his eyes, he can see Charles dying a dozen different ways. He sees the bullet from the beach curve horribly to ricochet into Charles’ skull. He sees Charles splayed open on a lab table not unlike Shaw’s, screaming as a man in a lab coat cuts him open from sternum to navel. He sees Charles burning in the blackened husk of the X-Jet, his eyes catching fire and his charred hand reaching out toward Erik, who can never, ever manage to reach back.

Bile burns in the back of his throat. Pushing the door open, he steps in unsteadily and leans back against the door to shut it. Closing his eyes, he has to breathe slowly through his nose for a minute to get his heart under control, to calm his stupid, fear-ridden mind.

When he opens his eyes again, Charles is sitting up on the bed and looking at him, his gaze hazy but curious. “Maybe,” he says, the word slurring just a bit, “you should sit down.”

He’s fine. Of course he is. Erik had known it. But that hooking terror is relentless, and Erik hates that he can’t control it. He hates that it exposes his weaknesses so easily, that his mind has become one of his worst enemies.

Charles in his head, he thinks humorlessly. Charles exacting some measure of vengeance after all, even if he doesn’t know it.

“You really don’t look well,” Charles says, and there’s a strange affability to his voice. He pats the space on the bed next to him and adds, “Come sit down before you fall down.”

He should leave. He should open the door, walk out, and pretend this never happened because Charles is no longer his concern. Charles doesn’t want his apologies and will never agree with what Erik knows is necessary. They have nothing to learn from each other anymore and nothing to gain. Erik learned to cut away pointless ties a long time ago.

But he crosses the room and sits in the edge of the bed beside Charles because his wretchedly weak mind wants so badly to touch, to reassure itself that Charles is alive and this is real.

“Are you alright?” Charles asks, peering at him. “You look like shit.”

“I’m—fine.”

His gaze roves restlessly over Charles’ body and snags on Charles’ rolled-up sleeve, pushed up past the crease of his elbow where half a dozen track marks stand out starkly against his pale skin. When Charles catches him looking, he yanks his sleeve down and says fuzzily, “I’m fine, too. I’m more than fine. I’m feeling quite excellent, actually. And I’m ravenous, haven’t eaten anything all day. There’s bound to be something in the kitchen, yeah?”

He tries to get up and wobbles. Erik snatches his arm to steady him but it has the opposite effect: Charles leans immediately into his touch and unbalances himself the other way, toppling back into the mattress with a startled noise. When he begins to laugh, Erik demands, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me? Nothing’s wrong with me.” At Erik’s skeptical look, he adds, “The serum takes a little time to hit, that’s all. But I already feel stronger, see?” Without bothering to sit up, he kicks sideways and catches Erik’s shin with his shoe, laughing again when Erik winces. “Serves you right.” But there’s no real malice in his voice. He sounds almost…affectionate.

Erik narrows his eyes at the tourniquet carelessly discarded on the nightstand. “Are you high?”

“High?” Charles giggles, and that effectively answers that question. “No, of course not,” he says anyway. “I’m perfectly lucid, I’m…Alright, I might be a bit high.”

“This is what your serum is?” Erik asks, concern morphing rapidly into contempt. “A psychedelic drug to make you feel better about yourself?”

“No, it normally doesn’t…I upped the dose. I always get a little loopy when I take too much.” He smiles at the canopy of the bed, his eyes vague. “The whiskey didn’t help, I imagine.”

He knows Charles has suffered, knows Charles is still suffering, but he still can’t help the anger that fizzles up in his chest. He spent ten torturous years in that cramped cell while Charles had spent those same ten here, in this expansive mansion drinking at his leisure, shooting up to take the pain away when Erik had never had the same option. The injustice of it burns hot in the back of his throat, and though he knows it isn’t Charles’ fault in the least bit, he still has to fight away the urge to violently shake Charles until his smile falls off.

“Don’t worry,” Charles adds, turning his head to look at him. “It doesn’t last the whole dose. It’ll wear off soon enough.”

Erik huffs impatiently. “You understand we don’t have time for this? Mystique is still out there and she could act at any moment.”

At the mention of his sister, some lucidity seems to return to Charles’ eyes, and he’s quiet for a long moment, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“Raven left me,” he says after a while, introspective. “On the beach. After all I did for her.”

“Even after all this time, you see her as a child.”

Charles’ brow furrows. “No, not a child. I know very well she’s old enough to take care of herself.”

“Do you? I think when you look at her, you still see that little girl you met in the kitchen when you were twelve. You’re not her father, Charles. You’re not responsible for her anymore.”

“Aren’t I?” The last vestiges of Charles’ smile disappear. “I taught her right from wrong. I showed her the better way and I thought she understood it.”

‘“The better way.”’ Erik doesn’t bother keeping his derision hidden. “You’re lying here high and drunk while she’s out there fighting for a cause worth following. Of the two of you, who do you think is doing our kind more good?”

That silences Charles for a minute. He idly runs his hand along the duvet, tracing his fingers down its swirled pattern. Erik tries to banish the memory of those same fingers trailing so warmly down his own skin, but the image lodges at the forefront of his mind and raises a lump of unexpected longing to his throat. He hadn’t realized until this moment how much he craves a gentle touch, from anyone. Charles spoiled him, in those months they spent together here so many years ago. He had taught Erik what it was like to be handled so carefully and affectionately, when all he had known before about touching another man was how precisely to kill him. He had accustomed Erik to it, in little nudges of his elbow and caresses under tables, and it had not been until much later, lying alone in a bed in a safe house in Peru with the other members of the Brotherhood asleep down the hall, that he’d realized how he had come to expect those touches, and how he missed them when they were gone.

“We still have to stop her,” Charles says eventually. “We can’t allow her to start a war we’ll only lose.”

“Have you ever considered the possibility that we can win?”

“Logan said—”

“Logan’s told us enough. We know more now than our future counterparts ever did. So Mystique kills Trask. We destroy the Sentinel program. The humans would be powerless.”

“First of all, we are _not_ letting Raven kill anyone,” Charles says, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. “And why in God’s name should we provoke hostilities and conflict when we could peacefully resolve our differences, through negotiation, through legislature—”

“There already _are_ hostilities, Charles,” Erik snaps. “There already is conflict, out there in the real world, but you can’t see it from the front steps of your mansion. Not everyone has an estate to retreat to when they’re tired of facing persecution. Not everyone can afford to manufacture serums to make them forget they’re mutants!”

Charles sucks in a sharp breath and clenches his fist against the bedspread, his eyes flashing with anger. Good, Erik thinks with fierce satisfaction. He’s suddenly spoiling for a fight and Charles always used to give as good as he got.

But he’s disappointed: the anger fades from Charles’ expression as quickly as it had come and, after taking a slow, steadying breath, he says, “Please go.”

“You can’t dismiss me every time you realize I’m right. It doesn’t change the truth.”

“I don’t want to argue.”

“You always want to argue. You just don’t like hearing that you’re wrong.”

The high from the serum must not have totally dissipated because Charles begins to laugh out of nowhere, helplessly, his stomach heaving with the force of it. It’s not the dry, bitter laugh Erik’s heard these last few days; it’s painfully genuine in its amusement, in its joy. And that _is_ joy on Charles’ face, bizarrely enough, and there’s a deep affection in his voice, too, when he finally catches his breath and says, “You never did hesitate to say exactly what you thought. I’ve missed that.”

The fond look Charles tilts him stops his breath in his throat. He’d forgotten what it was like to be regarded with such tenderness.

“You’re high,” Erik manages after a moment, more of a reminder to himself than to Charles.

“I am,” Charles agrees, smiling. “And it’s making it difficult to hate you right now, so please, enjoy it.”

Erik tries and fails to keep his gaze from getting caught on the soft curve of Charles’ smile, framed in the unfamiliar red scruff of his beard. After all this time, he still smiles the same way, wry and indulgent and warm. It’s the way he’d smiled at Erik on the terrace that afternoon he’d turned the satellite across the field. It’s the way he’d smiled at Erik that first quiet morning they’d woken up in the same bed in a cramped hotel room in Delaware, two days before they’d gone to find Darwin.

Charles’ smile turns cheeky when he notices Erik staring. “Like what you see?”

It’s a teasing question and the way Charles says it makes it almost rhetorical. Still, Erik answers anyway, mostly to watch the way Charles’ eyes widen when he says, “Yes. You know I do.”

Whatever Charles had been expecting, it hadn’t been honesty. He holds Erik’s gaze for a long, searching moment before sitting up and looking away.

“I don’t hate you, you know,” he says to the rug, examining his fingers in his lap. “Not even when I’m sober.”

Erik wants to reach out and catch Charles’ restless hands. Instead, he clasps his own together in his lap and replies, “I’d understand it if you did.”

Charles smiles ruefully. “I’d understand myself better if I did, too. But people are rarely so simple.”

He gets up from the bed and walks over to the desk by the window, picking up the almost empty decanter beside the lamp and unstopping it. As he pours a glass, his back to Erik, he asks, “Do you hate me?”

“For constantly disagreeing with me? Surely you know me better than that.”

“No, not for that. For…everything else. Everything that happened after we separated.”

He can feel old grief and anger lurking just in the corner of his mind, well within reach. With that to fuel him, it would be easy to hate Charles. It would be easy to be cruel.

“When you first starting cropping up in the papers after the beach,” Charles continues without turning around, “I knew what you were doing was risky. Of course I did. But even then, I didn’t actually think anyone would be killed. Stupid of me, I know. Maybe I underestimated the danger of your little operations. Or maybe I overestimated you. Even after Cuba, I trusted you to keep Raven safe…to keep everyone with you safe.”

Erik’s throat tightens. It’s an old hurt but it still burns, deep in his chest. “I failed,” he says bitterly. “Is that what you want to hear? An admission of guilt?”

“No, I—” Shaking his head, Charles turns, whiskey swishing in his glass at the motion. “I’m just telling you. When we heard about Angel, we did grieve for her, Erik. She was our friend. And what you said on the plane, about my abandoning you…sometimes I did wonder if there was anything I could have done for Angel. More than I did back then, certainly. If I had taken more time to speak with her after we recruited her, if I had just paused a moment to ask if she needed anything, if she wanted to talk…But I was so caught up in what we were doing. We spoke of grand things, Erik: stopping Shaw, finding other mutants, preventing a world war. But we did all those kids a disservice when we forgot how young they were.”

“I never forgot. I was younger than they were when the Nazis dragged my family out of our home and shipped us off to Birkenau. You think children can’t fight?”

“No, I know they can. I’m saying they shouldn’t have to.” Charles taps his fingers against the half-full glass in his hand, clearly agitated. “I’m sorry about Angel. I’m sorry about your other friends as well, Ms. Frost and Azazel. But a selfish part of me was terribly glad it wasn’t Raven. And glad it wasn’t you.”

Erik doesn’t know what to say. None of this is an apology or an argument. It’s just…conversation, and he hadn’t thought the current state of their relationship allowed for idle talk.

“I’m sorry,” Charles says when Erik remains silent too long. He wets his lips with the whiskey and shakes his head. “The high makes me talk too much. I just wanted you to know…well. I don’t know.”

It feels as if Charles is tentatively reaching out. He’s been turning his back to Erik ever since he broke Erik out of the Pentagon, refusing his apologies, matching him in his anger, dismissing him when the conversation turns too sharp. But now he’s talking, now he’s trying to explain himself, and even if he’s not doing a spectacular job of it, something begins loosen in Erik’s chest.

He says, almost teasing, “You always talk too much.”

Charles makes a watery sound that’s almost a laugh. The glass trembles in his hand and, after a moment of watching it, he sets it on the table behind him. “I think…maybe I should lie down now.”

There’s a sudden weakness in his voice that makes Erik frown. As Charles walks back to the bed, he stands, wondering if this is his cue to leave. But Charles turns at the last moment, right into Erik’s space, and presses his face to Erik’s shoulder, his arms slipping under Erik’s and circling around his back. Erik stiffens in shock but Charles doesn’t let go; if anything, his arms tighten around Erik, warm and firm.

“I missed you,” Charles whispers. “So goddamned much. And I’m so tired. Erik, I’m so tired.”

Even though Erik’s mind has frozen, his body remembers exactly how to fit Charles to itself, exactly how to pull him closer so that the space between them vanishes and Charles’ hips and shoulders and legs click together with his own, puzzle pieces finding complements. His arms move automatically to wrap around Charles’ shoulders, and Charles must read the motion as acceptance and comfort because he breathes raggedly into Erik’s shoulder and clutches him closer, like a man to a life-raft in a turbulent sea.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into Erik’s collar. “For never finding out the truth about what had happened in Dallas. When I heard, I was still in recovery. I was having a rough time of it, and I told myself I would go and see you later, when I was well again. I didn’t want you to see me like that. After what happened, everyone tried so hard to be helpful but I could hear their pity. It was almost worse than getting shot in the first place, and if I had gone to see you and seen that look in your eyes, if you had looked at me the way the boys did…”

Somehow Erik finds his voice. “I don’t pity you. I would never have pitied you.”

“I know.” Charles takes a hitching breath. “I was stupid. I was prideful. And I didn’t know what I would find when I went to see you. I was so angry with you after Cuba. I wanted so badly to believe you were innocent of the president’s assassination, almost as much as I wanted to believe you were guilty. It was so much easier to hate you when I could convince myself you were irredeemable.”

“So you left me there. You stayed ignorant for ten years, to keep your pride and your conscience intact.”

Erik wants to push him away, disgusted and angry. He wants to stalk out the door in a righteous fury and slam it shut so hard his rage will be ringing in Charles’ ears for days to come. But an instinctive, mindless part of him craves this contact, craves the warmth of another body nestled tightly along his. He’s been free of the prison for days, but only now is he beginning to realize that ten years in solitary broke something in him that used to be independent. Try as he might, he can’t force himself to shove Charles away; he just pulls Charles closer, buries his nose into Charles’ hair and breathes, shallow and fast.

“I’m sorry,” Charles says, running warm fingers up and down Erik’s back. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

His gentleness pulls at the frayed edges of Erik’s control, tearing and tearing until it unravels him entirely and he feels flayed out and exposed and so terribly small. “You don’t know what it was like,” he chokes. “Alone. I didn’t expect you to come, not at first. I had no right to, after what I did to you. But I thought…eventually. But you never did. And—the silence—”

It rings in his head, even now, the maddening pulse of his own thoughts, his own doubts, his mind’s own cruel hallucinations, round and round until he thinks he might go mad with it, with the unbearable, unnatural quiet.

“Erik? _Erik_.”

He’s trembling and he can’t stop. Dimly, he’s aware of Charles pulling them toward the bed, of the two of them falling over into an ungainly tangle of limbs onto the mattress, awkward because of how forcefully Erik is holding onto Charles, who’s saying something soft and soothing, who’s on top of him now and running hands through his hair and weighing him down, a physical anchor for Erik’s fragile sanity to hold onto in the storm.

He’s alright. He’s not in the glass cage anymore. Charles’ voice is filling the cold silence, warming the air in Erik’s lungs so he can breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he’s saying, fingers carding through Erik’s hair, nails scratching along Erik’s scalp, in the way that used to make Erik purr when they were in bed together. “I’m so sorry, Erik. You’re alright now. You’re with me, you’re not alone. Breathe with me…that’s good. Breathe.”

He fixes his stare on Charles’ face, afraid that if he closes his eyes, this will slip away. He’s had dreams like this before, moments where his mind tricked him into seeing what he wanted most to be real. But a minute passes, then another, and Charles is still there, heavy against Erik’s chest. He doesn’t disappear when Erik touches his shoulders and his neck, doesn’t flinch away when Erik’s fingers brush the side of his mouth.

“I don’t hate you,” Erik says, and the admission costs him nothing. “I never could.”

Charles’ eyes are wet when he presses their mouths together, his hand slipping to Erik’s nape to pull him closer. Charles’ breath is stale and reeks of whiskey, and underneath that he tastes like faded memories of old hotel rooms and smoky bars. It should be unpleasant but it’s not: it’s the most whole Erik has felt in ten, no, eleven years, since that night before Cuba when they had lain awake until the pale hours of morning, curled together in a timeless silence.

He drags his fingers through Charles’ hair, surprised by how much there is to grip. When Erik tugs lightly, Charles makes that familiar soft noise in pleasure, his eyes drifting shut as he parts his lips for Erik to slide his tongue into his mouth. The kiss is hot and insistent and sloppy, too desperate to be erotic, their rapid breaths too much like sobs to hide. But Charles is rocking his groin against Erik’s hip anyway, and Erik can feel his own erection digging against the curve of Charles’ ass. When Charles reaches down between them to undo Erik’s belt, Erik gasps, “I’m not going to last. It’s been too long and I can’t—”

Charles shushes him with a kiss and unbuttons Erik’s pants with one hand. When he shifts off to the side, Erik arches his back so Charles can pull pants and underwear down. Both of them tangle above Erik’s knees and Charles struggles with them for a moment before giving up and just reaching for Erik’s cock.

The moment his fingers touch Erik’s skin, Erik bucks with a sharp moan, pleasure arcing up his spine like electricity sparking through circuits. Charles shoots him a startled look and his lips curve in the beginnings of a grin. “It always used to take me some effort to get you this loud.”

“I haven’t gotten off in a decade,” Erik growls through gritted teeth. “If you’re looking for a slow fuck, you’re going to be disappointed.”

Charles squeezes the base of his cock with just enough pressure to make Erik’s eyes roll back. “It’s alright. Come as soon as you want.”

It’s over embarrassingly quickly. Charles only pumps his hand a few times and Erik twitches at his touch, fingers clenched in the bedspread as his entire body tenses in orgasm. The sensory overload is incredible: he hasn’t experienced sensation this strong in so long that he actually thinks he blacks out for a second, riding the crest of ecstasy over to its towering finish, unable to help the low, wrecked moan that tears from his throat.

Winded, he lies boneless and sated against the bedspread, his body shuddering with release. For a few long moments, his thoughts are lost in a blurred haze of pleasure, piecemeal and incoherent. As Erik slowly comes back down from the high of his first climax in an age, Charles pets his flank and murmurs soft things into Erik’s ear that he doesn’t quite catch. He’s always sleepy after sex, a fact Charles used to find both endearing and amusing. He should get up, he thinks drowsily. This is hardly the time for a nap, not when they still have so much to plan, not when Mystique is still out there and the situation is so urgent. But when Charles runs his fingers through Erik’s short hair, Erik’s eyes slip closed entirely without his permission. A heartbeat later, he’s asleep.

 

*

 

After a few quiet minutes, Charles levers Erik gently out of his lap and gets up from the bed to fetch a towel from the bathroom. Wetting it, he comes back, wipes Erik clean as best he can, and pulls his pants back up, leaving him dozing with at least some dignity, even if his limbs are sprawled everywhere and his mouth is hanging open. Charles pretends the twist of emotion in his chest isn’t affection as he goes to toss the towel into the sink.

Picking up his glass of whiskey on the table, he takes a long, hot swallow and leans his hip against the desk, eyes roving slowly over Erik’s form. He must have been exhausted to just pass out after sex like that, without a word, without even shifting into a more comfortable position on the bed. Even lethargic as he always used to be after orgasm, Erik never used to allow himself the luxury of actually falling asleep. Too naturally vigilant, Charles had figured.

He studies Erik’s face now: eyes closed, brow smoothed out, muscles slack. Does he feel safe here, with Charles? Is this a gesture of trust or is it simply a sign of overwhelming weariness?

Charles finishes his glass and pours another. The high from the serum is long gone, leaving him cold and clear-headed again. He knows better than to trust Erik. Not after Cuba, not after what happened in Paris. He _is_ sorry, intensely sorry, for all those years Erik suffered alone in prison, waiting for exoneration, waiting for someone to bother to come learn the truth. The guilt weighs heavily in his belly, like a stone at the bottom of his stomach. But no matter what Erik has endured, no matter how unbearably familiar he had felt in Charles’ arms minutes ago, radiating the sort of tenderness and vulnerability Charles only remembers in dreams, it doesn’t change the fact that he tried to kill Raven. He might possibly have killed Hank and Logan, too, if they’d gotten in the way. He has no qualms about sacrificing others for his vision of the greater good, and no matter how much Charles still feels for him, he can’t let emotion cloud his judgment. Erik is not a friend.

It’s easy to hold onto that conviction when he’s staring into the bottom of his glass and replaying the memory of the Paris hotel room over and over again in his mind, reminding himself of that unflinching ruthlessness in Erik’s eyes when he’d aimed that gun at Raven’s head. But he knows better than to underestimate his weakness for Erik. Even harsh experience is little good against the treachery of his own heart.

He finishes that glass, too, and then forces himself not to reach for the decanter again. Instead, he slips his hands into his pockets and walks over to the window, peering out at the dimming sky. The fading sunlight casts long shadows across the mansion’s expansive back lawn, dark and growing ever darker. The land feels sad like this, Charles has always thought. Dusk means coming inside; it means no more frolicking with Raven until tomorrow, no more avoiding his mother and stepfather, no more pretending he and his sister are the only two people in a whole world of their own making.

He’s never liked nighttime. He’s liked it even less in recent years, when sleep is a struggle even with the serum. Looking over at Erik snoring lightly in his bed, he’s almost jealous.

When Erik doesn’t wake in the next ten minutes, Charles decides to leave him where he is and go downstairs to make sure Logan and Hank haven’t destroyed the house while unsupervised. He’s buzzed from all the drinking so walking is a funny, woozy feeling, but he makes it down the stairs without breaking his neck and finds Hank and Logan sitting in the study, maps and notes strewn everywhere.

“Hard at work, I see,” he says by way of greeting.

Hank stands immediately, nearly upending a stack of files at his elbow. “Are you alright?”

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Hank’s eyes narrow. He’s gotten uncannily good at knowing when Charles is lying through his teeth. “What did he do to you?”

“You heard them going at it up there,” Logan says gruffly, not looking up from the page he’s holding. “What do you think?”

Charles can feel himself flush, even as he watches Logan carefully for a reaction. There isn’t much about Charles that Hank doesn’t know, not after ten years of tending to him. But if Logan hadn’t been aware of the details of his relationship with Erik, then he surely is now. And if current attitudes toward homosexuality prevail in the future…

At the silence, Logan glances up, catches Charles scrutinizing him, and stares back for a moment. Then realization seems to flicker through his eyes and he laughs. “You two are about as subtle as a brick to the face. I can smell him all over you and I promise you I don’t give a shit about who you fuck. We have bigger things to worry about in the future.”

Charles relaxes minimally and resists the urge to ask what exactly his relationship with Erik is like in the future. Though part of him wants desperately to know, a greater part of him is terrified and it’s the fear that prevails, at least for now.

He plucks a random page up off the desk and looks over Hank’s illegible notes. “Any progress?”

“No,” Hank replies with a frustrated sigh. “There are too many search parameters. She could be anywhere. She could look like anyone. We debated the idea of tracking Trask instead, but shadowing him would be more reactive than preventative. By the time she and Trask are in the same place, it may be too late for him.”

“So.” Charles glances around at the mess in the study and fights down the distinct feeling of drowning. “What can we do? There must be someplace to start.”

“Actually, we were thinking…well.” Hank shuffles some papers around in a painfully obvious attempt to avoid Charles’ gaze. “I hacked some servers of the Prefecture of Police of Paris but that was a dead end; they don’t update computer files very often and the most I could understand from newspapers was that they’ve got an open investigation going about what happened at the Hotel Majestic. We don’t really have the resources to search the globe. We barely have the resources to search New York. We could assume that she’s gone to a public hospital but we could also be totally wrong and—”

“He’s saying,” Logan cuts in impatiently, “that there’s only one way to search for her in the time we have.”

They’ve got to try something or they’ll lose her, and the future with her. Though Charles has a feeling he’s not going to like what’s coming, he nods. “I’m listening.”

Hank takes a breath. “Cerebro.”

Charles’ spine snaps stiff. He’s breathless for a second from the sheer _audacity_ of the answer. Logan is understandable; Logan doesn’t know the extent of Charles’ addiction to the serum. But Hank—Hank had been there from the very beginning, when Charles’ telepathy had begun to slip out of his control. He’d been there when Charles used to wake up at night yelling at phantom pain and convinced he was eight different people all at once. He’d been there every night Charles had been too afraid to sleep and too exhausted to stay awake, when the only recourse was to drink himself into unconsciousness so the world would finally, _finally_ shut up. He knows exactly why Charles will never touch Cerebro ever again.

For him, of all people, to suggest _this_ —it feels like nothing less than a betrayal.

His eyes must say as much because Hank looks away, his mouth pressed into a thin line of unhappiness. But he doesn’t retract his reply.

“Your telepathy is the best resource we have,” Logan says. “We can’t afford to waste it. Now Hank says it’ll take around eight hours for your system to flush the drugs completely, so we should probably get some rest—”

“I’m not doing it.”

Logan looks at him, brows drawing together. “What?”

“I won’t do it,” Charles repeats. He shakes his head when Logan makes to speak. “No. We’ll find Raven another way. There must be some other way.”

“There isn’t.” Logan stands up, his frown deepening. “Look, this isn’t over. We stopped Mystique from killing Trask once, but she’s still out there and if she eventually succeeds, I’m guessing your future’s going to look a hell of a lot like mine and it’s not going to be pretty. I’ve watched a lot of friends die and I have friends counting on me right now to see this through. So we’re going to do whatever it takes to find Mystique and end this here, okay?”

“I can’t,” Charles snaps, temper rising. He’s always hated the feeling of being lectured to. “My telepathy—it’s broken. I can’t do it, even if I wanted to. It’s impossible.”

“It’s not impossible,” Logan says, his voice low and fierce. “I’ve seen you in the future and I know you get over this. I’ve seen you open your home—this mansion—to dozens of boys and girls who would never have had a place to stay otherwise. I’ve seen you teach them how to be themselves and how to see their own potential.”

“I _can’t.”_ Everything Logan is saying sounds like nothing more than a bizarre fantasy, like another man’s pipe dream. He can’t imagine a future where he helps others. Not when he can barely help himself.

Logan’s eyes gentle. He says, quiet now, “You took me in when I had nowhere to go. I needed you then, and I need you now. But not like this. I need _you_.”

The conviction in his voice shakes Charles’ very bones. He believes in Charles more than Charles has ever believed in himself, and somehow, in that briefest moment, Charles finds himself believing, too.

He has an obligation to try, doesn’t he? For Raven.

“I won’t make any promises,” he says, misgivings fluttering tight in his throat. “But I’ll try.”

The corner of Logan’s mouth turns up. “That’s enough.”


End file.
